


A Bet to Lose

by SweetJacqueline



Category: Original Work
Genre: Brother-Sister Relationships, Consensual, Consensual Sex, Consensual Underage Sex, Crossdressing, Cute, Diapers, Disabled Character, Dress Up, Dresses, Enthusiastic Consent, F/F, F/M, Femdom, Feminization, Friendship, Friendship/Love, High Heels, Infantilism, Light Bondage, Male Protagonist, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Mother-Son Relationship, Motherhood, Pajamas & Sleepwear, Physical Disability, Pregnancy, Rainbows, Realistic, Revenge, Safe Sane and Consensual, Safeword Use, Safewords, Spanking, sissification, sissy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-20
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:13:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 24
Words: 148,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24294910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SweetJacqueline/pseuds/SweetJacqueline
Summary: A teenage boy makes a bet with his big sister and loses, getting a lot more than he bargained for in the process.
Comments: 9
Kudos: 94





	1. Christmas in May

Zoe did not like her life very much.

Heather, her mother, had given birth to her and her little brother Richard just ten months apart, the perfect age for him to be just immature enough to be annoying and just old enough not to be easily dealt with. Their father had to make a choice between his family and heroin when she was just three years old, and he had come down firmly on the side of heroin. And she'd just recently learned, less than half a year ago, that she couldn't really rely on her mother anymore, either.

But her mother wasn't there that day, and her brother was, and they were arguing over the list of chores she had left behind.

"I know what you're going to do," she told him after he suggested a division of labor. "You're going to go over the house doing a lazy-ass job for fifteen minutes, you're going to dust by wiping a cloth real quick over some things, then you're going to mow the lawn by running back and forth for another fifteen minutes, and then you're going to play Starcraft while I'm doing all the laundry, and drying the dishes properly, and scrubbing the toilet. Which will take me a lot longer than it will take you." Things weren't always quite like this between them, but last Christmas, and his thirteenth birthday two months ago, had soured her on both him and her crazy, stupid mother. Fortunately, her mother had told her that Zoe was free on her own upcoming birthday, and she also hadn't taken her children to the wedding that she had flown out to, saving money by flying out Monday afternoon and coming back Thursday morning.

"I'm not lazy like that, and you're playing that game, too!" he argued. She'd taken it up last month, half to see what he liked about it so much, and half to be somewhere that she wasn't being treated like the girl her mother wanted to treat her as.

"I've seen you sluff chores so many times. There's this this thing called diligence, I have it and you don't. I'm actually practicing that game. Are you even diligent enough to do that?"

The expression on his face changed a bit, and he leaned his head back in a haughty expression. "Have you even looked at the professional Starcraft players? They're all men, literally all of them. Girls can't play this." Her face screwed up in shock. She thought what he said on Christmas was bad, but this... "This just isn't a game for females, Zoe. You can't beat me, I've beat the computer on Harder! There's no way you'd win!"

Zoe blinked. She'd been using the computer, rather than human opponents, to practice. He'd actually offered to help but he did not want him looking over her shoulder, not after those two "celebrations". And now he'd just admitted, although he clearly didn't know it, that she was better than he was, despite him having had it for years and her just starting last month. She'd been watching videos in between practicing 1v1s against Very Hard and had defeated Elite. "You really are a waste. Get upstairs, right now, and sit your ass at your computer and wait for me to beat it."

"Wanna make a bet?" he offered right away.

"Fine. Loser does all these chores, all of them, the right way."

"While wearing a dress!" he yelled at her.

"Fine, you little shit! While wearing a dress!" She was upset, she was deeply upset, and she realized that it had to be intentional, him trying to throw her off her game while thinking he had the chance to humiliate her further. If this little shit thought he was going to make her wear a dress, let alone the same junior prom dress she'd worn on his birthday, or that Christmas abomination...

Seething with rage, she followed him upstairs, and played him 1v1 in Starcraft 2, her Terran and him Zerg. He kept sending individual Overlords to scout, kept sending in small units to probe, but he didn't expand properly, and then the overconfident little bastard had sent his whole army straight into the teeth of her defenses and got destroyed. She'd rolled over him just like the tanks she sent. "Get in here!" she shouted, and waited at her open door for him.

"Before we start, before we even start, I'm going to remind you of last Christmas, just to make sure you know why I'm about to do this stuff to you," she said as he approached. "Mom was telling me that I needed 'more practice in being feminine', and I was telling her that I didn't want to wear that God damn dress because it's awful. But then you said, AND I QUOTE, 'You're lucky you're a girl, because you get to enjoy being pretty,' just rubbing it right the in. And then she AGREED with that, she agreed with that, and she threw me out there and said I was grounded from everything if I wasn't the perfect hostess in a jingle dress. And you know who else was at that party, those cousins, those college cousins who stared at me like they wanted to rape me AND I'M THIRTEEN YEARS OLD. And I swear to God, one of them stuck his tongue out at me, like he wanted to lick my candy cane legs. I told Mom that I was done, I was just done, and I even tried to tell her about the cousin who did that, and you know what she said? She said I wasn't going to get any presents if I kept acting that way. What kind of threat was that? She never gets me anything good, she never even gives YOU anything good. So I came up in here and closed the door."

Richard stayed quiet, his lips pursed and eyes closed.

"But then she comes into my room, and says, 'why didn't you just listen to your brother, Zoe, why couldn't you just enjoy it because you're a girl, why do you keep making a big deal out of nothing', with me in that jingling dress from hell after my literal cousins AND YOU had been staring at me like a piece of meat?" He looked at her like he wanted to dispute that, but she kept going. "And then she tells me that I'M the one who ruined Christmas?" He was going to say something, but she overrode him. "Do you have any idea how hurtful it is, when someone is doing something to you that you hate, that you should just learn to accept and enjoy it, that it's not that bad so you shouldn't take it so hard and should just go along with it? Do you have any idea at all how awful it is to be told that? It's like if..." She didn't finish her sentence, and she realized that she was practically screaming at him and forced herself to calm down.

"I didn't mean..." he started.

"I don't care what you meant," she snapped. "You stared at me on Christmas and you stared at me on your birthday when you weren't playing with your stupid toys. You want to staring someone wearing a dress so much? Here you go, here's your chance. The whole thing, just like I wore it." She furiously dragged a cardboard box out of the back of her closet. "Enjoy your Christmas in May, you sexist shit." Her brother started hyperventilating, just a bit. She grabbed the hateful candy cane-striped tights out of the box and thrust them at him. "Take off your clothes, and I mean all of them, just like I had to, put these on in your room, and then get your sad ass right back here."

"Can I start with that part too?" he asked quietly, pointing to the vest/petticoat, a white concoction from hell that looked like a little girl's dress all by itself. "Just so you don't see my dick?"

"Fine. You got it," she said, shoving it at him as well, and he retreated to his room to put them on.

She wondered if he was actually going to wear it. She half-expected him to come back, smirking, and go 'Did you seriously think I was going to?' She couldn't actually make him do it, and, at some level, he had to know that. Her mother would flip her wig if she saw this, and Zoe had seen enough cop videos to know that even if she were twice his size, she certainly couldn't have physically forced him to wear it. Besides, there really wasn't anything stopping him from ripping up what she'd given him or cutting or tearing the dress apart later when she wasn't looking. (She wouldn't have really minded that much if he did. She hated the thing, after all.) The only reason she had worn it was because Heather had threatened to take everything away from her if she didn't, and she burned with anger and humiliation at the thought and wished that she had torn it apart anyway, right in front of her mother's face.

But Richard did no such thing. Instead, he knocked on his sister's door, even more softly than last time, and when she told him to come in, he stood there, looking very demure and very nervous, with his candy-cane legs and his white petticoats. Maybe he'd felt sorry for her - she knew he hadn't known about that thing with that one cousin - or maybe he thought she'd go easy on him if he quietly complied. She didn't know and didn't care. She had the chance for revenge and was not going to waste it.

"What are you worried about?" she asked spitefully. "I mean, you might not be a girl - yet - but you should feel lucky you get to look pretty wearing this stuff! So let's get you in it, just like I was." She pulled out the dress itself, and took a second to marvel at how stupid, how insultingly ridiculous, it really was, and he submissively put up his hands so she could lower it onto him. The bulk of the dress was similar to a Christmas tree, with little bells taking the place of ornaments, but since they couldn't ring freely against the fabric, an entire line of bells had been sewn along the hem, so the wearer- HIM, now, would jingle everywhere HE went. She buttoned up the front, the buttons made of Santa heads, and the long sleeves matched the tights with their candy-cane stripes. She smirked as the somewhat stretchy velvet fit him almost perfectly, although not quite the same way as it had her. A pair of red mittens with white fur cuffs was threaded with a string through the sleeves, and she made sure that the string stayed in front of his chest just like it had hers. "Hands in mittens, and I don't care what you're doing, you keep them in there, just like I had to," she told him, knowing that he had only been a small part of the problem. She wanted to find a way to do something much worse to her mother. "Here's your Santa hat, don't let it fall off your head!" It was just like a regular Santa hat, only with a bell in place of the top pom, and she secured it firmly around his head. "And your boots, we really can't forget your boots, little sissy!" The boots were also red with white fur, with little bells hanging from the tops and three-inch heels with a small platform, and he passively tugged them on one at a time. She couldn't remember if she ever told her mother what she thought of the whole ensemble: that it made the wearer look like an eight-year-old whore.

She wasn't done with him, though, and moved her swivel chair to the vanity she got on that very unmerry Christmas. She'd never used the thing, and she grinned sardonically at the fact that he would be the first. He stumbled slightly in his boots as he sat down on the chair. She applied generous amounts of foundation and dark red lipstick - she'd never used it, she was surprised it hadn't totally dried out - and decided not to continue with more because she didn't want him to look gross. She wanted him to look cute. She pulled out her phone from her pocket - a thing his dress didn't have - and snapped a picture once she was done.

"Are you gonna blackmail me?" he asked in surprise, a lilt in his voice.

"Blackmail is when you threaten to send it. I am not threatening to send anything." She pushed a few buttons on her phone, uploading it to her private, four-person Discord chat. "There. Now The Squad knows." Zoe and her three closest friends had named themselves that, after the political counterpart, shortly after she had met them a few months ago.

"If Mom ever sees that, we're both in deep shit," he said nervously.

"She won't," Zoe said curtly. "We keep our secrets. No, that's just for us, to forever memorialize my little shithead brother as a pathetic sissyboy wearing the world's most girly Christmas dress in May." He pursed his lips and looked downwards, not wanting her to see his expression. He shifted on his seat a bit. "But you know who it's really for? It's for you, because this IS you. As much as you don't deserve them, you'll be back in your boy clothes after Mom gets home, but no matter what happens later, you will always be the little jingle boy who let his sister dress him up like a candy cane tree, for the rest of your life." She reveled in the pure catharsis, the sheer vindication of taking all the humiliation of the last two parties, that totally wasted Christmas and his shitty, friendless birthday party - those cousins were the only males there other than him - and throwing all of it straight onto him instead. There weren't any surviving pictures of her in that damn dress - a very fortunate glitch had deleted the entire album they were saved in, on all devices - but there would always be at least one picture of him. "Well, go on, Jingle Boy! The house isn't going to vacuum itself! Make sure you don't trip over your heels!" Taking uncertain steps in his fur-lined girly boots, he quietly, obediently, minced out of the room, bells tinkling, under Zoe's mocking glare. "Don't worry, there will be someone here playing your game, you don't need to anymore!" she called out as he jingled down one stairstep at a time.

She briefly felt that maybe she was being a bit too harsh, but that monstrosity was what had been done to her and what he'd clearly wanted to continue doing to her. If this wasn't the very definition of karmic justice, what was? 

She put on her headphones and played two games, the hum of the vacuum cleaner a pleasant background buzz. The first game, she'd lost, but she wasn't familiar with the limited map and blamed it on that. The second game, she won, not entirely decisively, but enough to feel like she'd proved herself. She heard a light knock on the door just as she was mopping up, and with the biggest, smuggest expression on her face, she opened it.

There stood her little brother, holding the vacuum cleaner with his velvet mittens like the perfect little sissy housewife, pursing his painted lips. "Can I come in?" he asked in a timid, soft voice.

"Ask politely to do what you came here for, and I'll let you in."

"May I please clean your room, Zoe?" he quietly asked, looking at the ground and demurely holding the vacuum cleaner to himself.

"You certainly may. Don't even think about opening anything, and be careful with the cords."

She considered continuing to play while he worked, just to rub it in some more, but it was much more fun to sit in her swivelchair and watch him instead, her in T-shirt and jeans, headphones around her neck, and him in his stupid Christmas outfit. He actually did vacuum her room diligently, using the edging attachment for corners and even using the dusting attachment for other surfaces, slowly and delicately doing everything with the velvet mittens inhibiting his grip and making sure that his dress didn't brush against anything, his petticoats resting against his candy-cane legs as he got on his knees to reach under her bed, the bell on his Santa hat touching the frame. It was exhilarating to watch, and she took a couple more pictures of him doing his chores like the little maid he was. The only thing she regretted was that she couldn't hear the jingling of his bells over the noise of the vacuum cleaner.

Eventually, he finished, and started to jingle away. "Well?" Zoe asked abruptly, and Richard turned to her in confusion. "You asked politely to clean my room. What do you say now that you're done?"

"Thank you for letting me clean your room, Zoe," he meekly said, looking at the floor again.

"You're very welcome, Jingle Boy. Once you're done with the rest of the house, you can go do the laundry." She gestured to her full hamper, and he picked it up and walked out with it and the vacuum cleaner, taking short steps in his heels.

Feeling like the queen of everything, Zoe turned back to play another practice game before she went out into the big leagues, and got utterly crushed in both tactics and unit production. The other player was just that much better, she couldn't figure out what she had done wrong. Wasn't Very Hard supposed to be the equivalent of a really good human opponent, wasn't that what that meant? Who the hell were these people? She remembered that he had his own username and looked him up in the rankings, just to compare; if she was having this much trouble against initial human opponents, surely he was even worse. (It crossed her mind that this would have been a much smarter thing to do before she had challenged him.) She couldn't believe her eyes and thought she was misreading: he was in the Diamond league. Diamond, while she was having trouble winning in the practice maps. "What the hell!" she half-whispered, not understanding. All he said was that he could beat the computer on Harder! Had the little shit just gotten someone else to rank him up or what? That made even less sense.

She noticed that the vacuum cleaner had been turned off, and wondered if he'd finished with that particular task. She thought about how obedient and quiet he had been while she had dressed him, even while he had partially dressed himself, even while he had cleaned her room. Then she got to thinking about what, exactly, he had said on Christmas and what he had been staring at, during both Christmas and his birthday. And then she remembered whose idea this bet had been in the first place.

"Oh no, Br'er Fox, please, whatever you do, don't you ever throw me in that there briar patch," she said aloud, pissed at him and absolutely furious with herself for not realizing a whole lot of things, about Starcraft, about his behavior both previous and recent, about why he'd put on the petticoat so she wouldn't see the outline of his dick. He probably still had a throbbing erection. Closing the game in fury and tossing her headphones onto the desk, she got up from the computer and stomped downstairs, hearing a slight tinkle of bells from the laundry room. She threw open the door hard enough for it to bang against the springy rubber stop, and he jumped in surprise, bells tinkling again, and turned from his clothes sorting to face her, a sheepish look on his face. He knew she knew, and she knew he knew she knew, and he knew she knew he knew she knew.

"You lost on purpose," she accused him anyway. If she could have spat venom, she would have done it right then.

"I threw the game, yeah," he replied, in an ordinary voice totally bereft of all the timidity he'd shown - roleplayed - over the past hour. He'd felt lucky that his plan had worked at all and was hoping that she wouldn't figure it out so soon. The boots, while super cute, were a size too small and were pinching his feet, but he loved the sound his little bells made, loved the slippery-soft feel of his velvety mittens, loved the soft feeling of his dress and petticoats on his skin, loved how cute he was as he looked down at his pretty Christmas tree dress and childishly striped candy cane arms and legs, smiled every time he saw his made-up reflection anywhere, and enjoyed the thrill of doing chores while dressed like this in front of a girl, even if she was his sister. He'd even enjoyed the sensation of being dominated and mocked. He figured that she was certainly going to strip him of all of it now that she knew. At least it was nice while it lasted.

"You little pervert. You got your sister to fulfill your fantasy. I hope you're proud of yourself."

"You wanted to do it, too!" he replied. "You were enjoying doing it! If you didn't want to, why'd you take the bet?!"

"Yeah, because I thought you didn't want to be-" She stopped abruptly, not liking how it made her sound. 'I only wanted to put you in a humiliating dress because you didn't want to be in one' was something a Grade A bitch would say. Still, though... "I didn't know you were getting off on this! Your sex fantasy is of something that made me hurt, you know that, right?"

"I know YOU hate wearing it! That's why I deleted all the pictures Mom took on Christmas, because I knew you didn't want to see yourself like that again." He'd felt enormously guilty at the time, both for saying what he said and for secretly wanting to wear something that had actually, seriously, humiliated his big sister.

"Bullshit, she said she got an email from support," Zoe said, unsure. That had been an awfully convenient glitch...

"I deleted the whole album off the cloud, then her phone and computer, and then sent her a bogus support email with fake headers. I even had to fish it out of the spam folder myself and mark it unread. You'd know it was fake, but of course Mom believed it." Their mother, as she would be the first to admit, was generally incompetent with technology and had previously needed her children to avoid getting suckered; they'd even talked her out of sending money to a Nigerian prince a couple years ago. She had zero concept of computer security and wasn't good at keeping track of her phone. "I bet she still has it in her inbox somewhere." He looked at his sister, his heels putting his eye level somewhat above hers. "Think about it, a glitch deleting just one album from both her cloud and local storage on her phone and computer?"

"You would've been in so much trouble if she found out." Because their mother had some idea of just how susceptible she was to falsehoods, that was the kind of thing that would get him grounded, no computer, no TV, no games, no anything, for months. "You could have told me."

"You were really upset," he replied. "I didn't know what you'd do, I thought you might have told her because you were still pissed off at me for saying you were lucky, and then later I figured it'd just be safer, I guess, if you never knew." He took a deep breath, the velvet moving as he did. She knew his big, dirty secret and could already get him in deep trouble, so there wasn't much point in keeping more from her. "Also, after my birthday party, she wasn't the one taking the pictures so I couldn't delete those, but I told her that I'd saw some research saying that two-thirds of all lesbians.. um..." He tried to remember exactly what he'd made up. "'were excessively feminized by their mothers, including forced wearing of dresses and other female paraphernalia.'" Zoe's eyes widened somewhat. "You know she'll believe anything with big words in it. She probably thought that meant that there was a two-thirds chance you'd turn into a lesbian if she kept doing that to you. That's probably why she left us at home instead of dragging us to that stupid wedding, because you'd have to wear a dress if you went." Like most of the rest of their family, their mother was someone that some people would call 'traditionalist' and others would call 'homophobic'. Being convinced that her own actions were actually leading her daughter to become less feminine instead of more had changed her approach immediately.

"And why she's going to let me do whatever on my birthday. Ricky, I don't know whether I want to slap or kiss you, well definitely not kiss you, you're still a pervert, but... okay, I know your secret, now you're going to know mine, and you never tell anyone this." He nodded. "I'm bi. Bisexual. So when you told her that, you might have made her start looking for signs of it, and do you know what the hell she'll do if she ever finds out?" He fumbled for an answer. "You don't know. Neither do I. If you actually do care about me, you'll keep that secret and I mean secret. Also, why did you say all that shit about girls earlier?"

"All of that was just bait so you'd take the bet," he replied, holding his mittens up innocently. "I didn't mean a word, I swear."

She nodded. It really was unlike him to say things like that, especially given what he'd really meant on Christmas. "I sure did throw you right into that briar patch, Br'er Rabbit." Her expression softened a bit. He really was a tricky little bastard, but he'd only been tricking to help her avoid what she didn't want and get what he did. It was her mother who'd been hurting her out of some misguided ideals, and he'd put an end to that, at risk to himself and without even expecting any thanks. If, instead, he'd held real malice in his heart towards her, he would have stomped her in the game, although, she had to admit to herself, she probably would have welshed on the bet. She felt deep love towards her little brother, despite the fact that he was a colossal pervert; after all, a lot of people would call her sexuality perverted as well. She was actually relieved that she'd been playing to his fetish the whole time, as that was better than having actually hurt him. She felt a bit of swiftly dissipating guilt. She'd intended to punish him for hurting her and had actually rewarded him for helping her. No harm, no foul. "Hey, if my friends came over here and saw you like this in person, would you be okay with that? And I'm sorry about sending pictures without asking, that was a bitchy thing to do."

"It's okay, I was trying to piss you off," he reminded her. "And yeah, sure, as long as they don't do anything too weird."

"They won't," she assured him with a smile. "It's funny, because last week, we were talking about boys in dresses, and Susie said some kid's babysitter put him in some weird bondage dress thing and his twin sister almost blew the babysitter's head off."

He rolled his eyes. "Bullshit, video or it didn't happen."

"I said the same thing! Susie swears it's real, though." That was a reminder to check her phone, and the chat was lively, with all three of her friends gushing over how cute he was, and he smiled a bit as she let him read it. 'He lost on purpose', she texted to them, and the chat grew much livelier; she invited them over to watch a movie, and the chat grew livelier still. Then, abruptly, she threw her arm around her little brother and took a selfie with him, both of them smiling widely for the camera. Caroline abruptly stopped chatting; she was the only member of the Squad with a driver's license, and she'd just jumped into her car to pick the other two up as fast as she legally could. Zoe then noticed the piles of laundry Richard had made, and something was off. 'Gtg, see you when you get here,' she texted, and put her phone back into her pocket. "You're separating the laundry wrong."

"How, it's whites and colors, right?"

"Oh my God, I'm glad I came down here." He knew how to vacuum, but he did not know how to wash. "This house, it's regular whites, regular colors, delicates, and permanent press, and I'll show you what gets what." She went through and explained fabric labels, materials, and dyes, and he patiently listened in his sweet dress, trying not to jingle too much when she talked.

"Four loads, that's going to take a while," he noted at the end.

"Yeah, well, normally you're supposed to be doing other stuff at the same time," she pointed out. "But, huh. You did the dusting with the vacuuming, and I bet you don't want to get your dress or mittens dirty by doing the dishes or the toilet, do you?" He shook his head. "I bet you'd love mowing the lawn like that, wouldn't you?" He blushed deeply and looked away. "You really are a pervert." She smiled at him, shaking her head a bit. "We have days to do all that stuff anyway, and my friends will be here in like twenty minutes. Staying on those boots that long is bad anyway."

"Yeah, I think they're too small."

"Then we definitely have to get those off you. I know you love them, but that's really not good for you. And... I still kinda don't like how you did it, but thanks for getting Mom off my back, little bro."

He curtsied, placing one heeled foot in front of the other and pinching the sides of his dress with his mittens, making all the delicate little bells tinkle. "Thanks for dressing me up, big sis."


	2. Some Problems are Worse

After she helped pull off his boots, letting his tights-clad feet breathe and relax, Zoe and Richard talked until her friends got there. She'd asked him how long he'd been interested in such things, and he explained that he'd always wanted to do it, that he'd always wanted to try on dresses and look pretty, even though, as he carefully pointed out, he didn't actually want to be a girl. It was an erotic thing for him, but that wasn't entirely the reason. "This is why I never let you see what character I'm playing in some games," he added, and Zoe understood. She explained that she'd only become interested in girls recently, or maybe she just realized that she always was. Both of them stumbled over their words a lot, with awkward silences in between that were filled by Zoe's texting with her friends, and they were interrupted by a message on Zoe's phone telling her that the car had just pulled up. Richard pulled his boots back on and minced to the door to greet them.

Coming down the path were three girls. To Richard's left was a tall, well-developed blonde in a white t-shirt advertising a mechanic shop, jeans, and sneakers, and she had the sort of permanent grime that gave the impression of long experience with manual labor. To his right was a slightly, somewhat less-developed, brown-skinned girl with shiny, long black hair, wearing an expensive-looking purple shirt and skirt set with elegant flats. Unlike him, neither of them were wearing heels, which was just as well because the girl between them could never have worn them.

That girl looked to be about eleven or so, with red hair and a sea of freckles. Like the taller girl, she wore a shirt, jeans, and sneakers, but her jeans had bell bottoms and were obviously oversized to fit something under them. She walked like a frail, old woman, taking one careful step at a time, and Richard immediately realized that this girl had serious mobility problems and was walking between them so that she could be caught if she fell. Before they arrived, Richard had envisioned girls very similar to Zoe, of the same attributes and general height as her, with the same brown hair and blue eyes he and his sister shared. It hadn't really occurred to him that they might look completely different from her and each other, and it certainly hadn't even crossed his mind that one of them might be disabled.

"He is so cute, he is soooo cuuute!" the girl on the right squealed on seeing him as the middle girl smiled at him deeply, her mouth opening in sheer joy.

"Wowwww. I thought those were Photoshopped. He's actually wearing that, no, he actually WANTS to wear that. Holy shit, Zoe," the girl on the left said.

Zoe introduced them from left to right, and he jingle-curtsied to each in turn. "Richard, this is Caroline, who just turned seventeen, Leslie, fourteen and a half," Richard was surprised but understood at once: whatever disease had done that to her had also stolen her puberty. "Susie, fifteen and a half. Be careful, there's a step," she added.

"Zoe, I wet on the way here," Leslie said softly, as her friends gently, carefully moved her up the single step, a step that Richard had taken thousands of times without even thinking about it.

"Our only bathroom's upstairs," Zoe replied. "I'll get you in the kitchen." Richard saw that Zoe did some things with the braces on the girl's legs, lowering her onto the floor, and then he looked away.

"What's...?" Richard asked quietly.

"Duchenne muscular dystrophy," Caroline replied solemnly. "Very rare in girls, Leslie just happened to get unlucky. She's had it since she was nine. It hasn't hurt her brain, thank fucking God."

Richard took a breath. He was an intellectually gifted and unusually internet-savvy thirteen-year-old boy, and he thought of himself as as a true swimmer of the waves, having experienced all the sick and disturbing content that he could find just because he was thirteen years old and wasn't supposed to be looking at it. A small fraction of that was diaper fiction, some of which involved genuinely horrific scenarios. A few times, he'd been so disgusted with the story, and himself for reading it, that he'd stopped reading out of fetishy interest and continued out of pure morbid curiosity, simply because it was there and he wanted to see how bad it would get. For someone to actually inflict that kind of total, permanent helplessness on someone else would be unfathomable, Mengele-tier evil that couldn't be adequately described with the word 'sadism'. This disease had done that and more to a nine-year-old girl without giving her so much as a safeword.

"Totally incontinent?" he near-whispered. He knew it was bad manners to talk about her behind her back, but to say this stuff out loud was unthinkable.

"She lost bowel control earlier this year," Caroline said quietly. "The urine's bad enough." There was silence, for a bit, as Zoe applied wet wipes and powder.

"You're already wearing a dress, do you want to know what this is like?" Susie softly asked, straight-out. "Personally?"

The Christmas dress was still just clothes that his sister had been threatened into wearing only once; the idea of fetishizing part of someone's actual disability, in person, was appalling and disturbing. "Wouldn't that be making fun of her?" he whispered.

"Let's ask her," Susie replied as Leslie and his sister came back from the kitchen. "Hey, Leslie, Ricky wants to know if it's okay for you two to be diaper buddies," she said blithely, and Richard stared at her in surprise.

She smiled at him. "Sure, I'd like that," she replied in her weak voice.

"Just so you know, Ricky, I did this for a week," Zoe added. He went from staring at Susie to staring at her - his sister was in diapers for a week, and he never knew?! "It was gross and terrible even though I changed myself, I wouldn't wish it on anybody, and I was worried that you or Mom would find out," she continued, to his shock. "And in case you didn't know, I've been putting absorbent stuff in my pants for a few days every month for almost a year now." At first, he didn't know what she was talking about, and then abruptly he did.

"You keep dressing like that, and you'll learn more about that last part," Caroline teased him.

"I'm not really a girl, and I'm not gonna be," he said, and his slightly pouting, made-up face garnered light giggles, particularly from Leslie. "Leslie... will this actually help you?"

"I just want the people I'm with to know what it's like," she said. "Just a little part of it. You can stop whenever." There was a very faint trace of bitterness. Her friends got to stop wearing diapers whenever. She did not.

"I'll do it until Mom gets back," he agreed. "She'll probably find out if it's me doing it near her, and if she finds out about this, any of this at all, it's gonna be..." He looked to the girls, trying to think of suitable words. "Catastrophically, cataclysmically, grounded-forever bad." He tried to put his finger across his throat in the cartoon throat-cutting gesture, but he was still wearing his mittens so it just looked silly.

"Then we should make the most of the time we have," Caroline said. "Do a twirl for us." Richard did so, spinning his dress around while turning on his heels, and although he was sure he didn't do it properly, the girls clapped anyway. "This isn't even embarrassing for you, is it?" she asked.

"It's not. If other things were different, it totally would be, but it's not."

"Good, because unlike what your" Caroline did not really say the words 'crazy-ass', but Richard heard them. "mom did to Zoe, we are not going to humiliate you in public. But what we are going to do, is, well, Susie?"

"We're going shopping," she said as the washer dinged.

"Perfect timing. Ricky, go put the clothes in the dryer, but don't put another load in the washer, we don't want the clothes to mildew," Zoe told him. 

He could have said no, that any going out in public dressed like a girl at all was actually humiliation, that this was seriously going way too far, and Zoe's friends would have accepted that because they were people, not monsters. Instead, jingling to their amusement, he minced off to put the wet laundry into the dryer like his sister had told him to.

Since all he was doing was moving clothes from one machine into another, even with his mittens, it didn't take him that long, so he returned to the living room as Zoe came back down with clothes, both his and hers. He stood off to the side, enjoying the thrill of letting them pick for him. Leslie, he noted, was making the decisions, and he was surprised at them. His sister's shoes were too small for him, so he'd wear his white sneakers and a somewhat skinny pair of his jeans that he usually eschewed. He'd also be wearing one of his sister's shirts, a pink one embroidered with blue waves, that he'd never seen her actually wear. A pink ponytail placed on top of his head and a change of makeup, turning the red lips into something more subtle, completed the effect. Leslie had been spot-on with her choices; in the mirror, he saw nothing but a modestly dressed girl a bit younger than himself, somewhat tall in stature but who hadn't yet hit puberty and wasn't trying to be super girly.

"You get shotgun," Caroline told him as they walked out together, the others helping Leslie down the step. "You're the broadest of all of them, and Leslie needs room." The front seat was definitely comfortable, and he realized that he wasn't worried at all about being seen.

"Speaking of which," Susie said as they got into the back seat, "No, wait, first, Zoe, did you tell him Rule 1?"

"I didn't, I figured you should," Zoe replied.

"Okay. Richard, Rule 1 of being my friend is that you cannot talk to me about money. At all. You cannot ask for it, you cannot ask for anything gained with it, you cannot so much as mention it. This rule is absolute. I have lost so many friends over this stuff and I don't want to lose more."

"I understand," Richard said. He didn't just understand the rule, he understood why it existed. He got the impression, just looking at her, that she was very, very rich. If he were very, very rich, he would probably have a similar rule to keep moochers away from him.

"Okay, I have heard from a trusted friend that a babysitter tried to sissify a ten-year-old with a bondage dress and his twin sister grabbed a shotgun and almost blew the babysitter's head off with it. Do you believe this happened?"

"I don't. It's not that I think you're lying, I just really doubt whoever told you about it," Richard explained. "And I know there's weird real stuff out there, I've seen some of it online." That was an understatement. He had seen very real human monsters, even had one on his Discord friends list, because he had gone looking for them. Knowing that such things existed made being seen in girls' clothes seem much less frightening.

"Right, fine, I'll see if I can get better proof," Susie replied, shrugging. "Maybe you all are right, maybe she really is BS-ing me." She shifted the conversation over to what Zoe has asked him, how long he had worn dresses and how long he had wanted to wear them, and he found the questions only somewhat easier to answer the second time around.

"There's the store," Susie pointed out after a while. The store she pointed to was a thrift store festooned with Memorial Day advertisements and promises of discounts on already cheap stuff. The store had just reopened after the outbreak. No one asked why she picked a thrift store; to do so would be to indirectly violate Rule 1. "It's all luck. You can find nothing or you can find everything," she explained anyway. "But since they've been getting donations they can't sell for the last couple of months, it's probably more everything than nothing."

Caroline parked and Richard did not hesitate in stepping out. This was his first time outside in girls' clothes, but he knew that no one was looking nor cared, nor would they, not when Leslie would catch far more attention with her limping, elderly movements. (It briefly crossed Richard's mind that the actual elderly didn't deserve this any more than she did.)

"Okay, everybody, if you see something you like, go ahead and grab it," Susie said. "Just don't go crazy." This was the flipside of Rule 1. Her friends weren't allowed to question her generosity any more than they were allowed to ask for it.

Zoe went with Leslie, staying close to the disabled girl and letting her pick out anything she thought would be nice for either of them. Caroline simply browsed, looking for knick-knacks rather than clothes. Richard actually took the opportunity to snag some ordinary boy clothes he liked; people would have noticed a boy in the girls' section, but nobody noticed an ostensible girl in the boys' section.

Susie went through the racks of girls' clothes, but she was more interested in the back room, a place of still-bagged clothes that had not yet been processed, and that was where she hit the jackpot. A baby pink, knee-length dress with puffed sleeves and built-in petticoats, a pair of rainbow scrunchies, a pair of pink ruffled socks, and a pair of shiny Mary Janes with one and a half-inch heels were all in the same bag, which was labeled "Donation from GAS". (She chuckled at the acronym but had no idea what it could have possibly stood for.) Excited, she motioned Richard back there to try the shoes on, and they fit perfectly. She squealed in delight. She held the dress against him, and as it was at least approximately his size, she decided to buy it; if it didn't fit, she'd alter it herself. The place was an absolute treasure trove, even better than she'd hoped. She also selected a pair of Santa boots with four-inch heels that also fit him fairly well - they both laughed at the idea that he'd grow into them - another pair of pink, four-inch heels, a pair of wedge sneakers with two-inch heels, and multiple dresses in varying colors and lengths, along with a bright pink purse and a childish pink backpack with sparkling rhinestones.

By the time she was done picking out stuff, the others had been ready for a while, and she paid for them all without question. This was a thrift store offering discounts, so the price for all of it combined was fifty-something; she reached into her well-stocked billfold in her well-stocked purse, handed three twenties to the elderly cashier, and told her to keep the change, to her surprise and thanks. The place was owned by a local charity that had been hit hard by the pandemic, after all. Susie's face was a beacon of pure glee as they walked out with their bags.

They very briefly stopped at a craft store. Susie went in alone and came back out in three minutes. "It's a surprise," she said.

Their next stop was a gas station; Caroline went in to pay with the twenties that Susie simply handed her, and she came back to the car with cups of crappy gas station hot chocolate and small, unhealthy snacks. Between sips, she talked about the last time she worked on her car and what her father had taught her about transmissions. Richard noticed that it was kind of odd listening to a girl talk about cars, but it was probably less odd than a boy in a dress, and she was kind enough to strictly avoid obvious, contextual 'tranny' jokes.

Their next destination was a grocery store, and on the way, they realized that Richard used Discord but wasn't in their group for some reason, and the Squad was then formally a group of five. "I don't think I can walk all this. You don't need to bring me." Leslie said as Caroline parked.

"If you're staying, I'm staying," Zoe said firmly. "You know that."

Caroline popped open the trunk to retrieve a wheelchair, and her voice was a combination of calm and firm. "Leslie, we've been over this. You are not a burden, and you are not a liability. Do you actually want to sit in here by yourself while the rest of us go in there?" She shook her head. "Then c'mon out." She did, and the other girls helped her into the chair. Richard would have helped, except he had no idea how her leg braces worked.

"If you want me to, I'll push," he offered.

"It's okay, Ricky, Zoe's good for this stuff," Leslie said, smiling fondly, and they walked in together. Richard realized, then, that they had made him one of them. He wasn't a circus freak, he wasn't a plaything or a doll to them, he was someone they actually cared about. He was a boy, and they all knew he was a boy, and although they were pretending otherwise to the public, they weren't pretending among themselves. They had welcomed him, not humiliated him, for what he was. He had a group of friends, one he had never had, one he never knew he wanted. He realized that he would have done anything reasonable, as well as a great many unreasonable things, if they had so much as asked. He was expecting them to want to parade him around in frills and lace, and instead, he was walking around like a modestly dressed girl, all the attention on the girl in the wheelchair that his sister was pushing in the grocery store.

This destination was actually Caroline's gift to Susie than the other way around, as she was primarily shopping for herself, selecting ingredients for recipes only she knew. As before, the others bought lightly. Caroline's family had plenty at home already, for Leslie, it was more about what she could and should eat than what she wanted to eat, and Zoe made a point of picking up the burritos that both she and her brother found tasty and easy to make. Susie paid for everything, again, and this time Richard was used to it.

That was all; the group was basically done for the day. Leslie had to get home and take her pills, and Caroline also had to be home fairly soon. "Hey, Ricky, want to spend some more time at my place? You live less than a mile from me," Susie told him to his surprise.

"You want to say yes, believe me," his sister advised.

"She's got a massive crush on you," Leslie told him, and Susie turned to her in exaggerated shock. She wasn't supposed to just blurt that out!

"Okay, you've talked me into it," he said, and they all laughed. Leslie's home was, as expected, on one floor with no steps, and Richard stayed in the car as Zoe pushed Leslie to her door. Her parents thanked Zoe, as Richard was sure they always did, for being so good to her.

They drove back mostly the way they came. Richard's home was in the less expensive part of a fairly large suburban area on and around a hill, with property values and lawn sizes generally growing with height, right up towards a cul-de-sac with one particularly large house, practically a mansion, at the peak. He'd always wondered who owned this enormous house at the top of the hill, and now he knew.

She had the pink backpack, but he did carry in more bags than she did; he was, after all, still a boy. He tried not to stare at the high ceiling, the unimaginably expensive rug, or anything else in the lavishly furnished house; he was actually grateful for Rule 1, as he would have felt compelled to compliment her without it. A small, orange tabby meowed loudly as they entered, the cat wrapping itself around his legs as he set the groceries down next to the large refrigerator.

"Whiskers, I know he smells good, but you're going to get stepped on if you keep getting in the way," Susie told her cat affectionately, and Richard pet the tom anyway.

"I didn't see you get any cat food," he noted.

"Cat food? Whiskers does not eat 'cat food', he eats food. Not always the same food, but still food. I'm not giving you a can or a bag of 'people food' for dinner, am I?"

"Oh, okay. We're having dinner?"

"After we put this stuff away, cooking dinner is the third thing we're doing today," she told him. "The second thing is that we're dressing you up. The first thing is that I'm going to teach you the basics of sewing."

He didn't understand what she meant, but once she pulled what she'd bought at the craft store out of her purse, she did. All that she'd purchased was a one-dozen pack of small bells. She pulled the baby pink dress and ruffled socks from the pink backpack, and he learned how to thread a needle - a tricky thing - and how to precisely sew small things without the thread coming loose or falling off. Once they were finished, his prissy pink dress and pink ruffled socks were now a jingly, prissy pink dress, bells positioned equally apart from each other at the hem, and jingly, pink ruffled socks, two bells on each side. She couldn't wait to dress him up in it, and dress he did, his ponytail replaced by the rainbow scrunchies she'd gotten him, his ruffled-sock feet buckled into his shiny Mary Janes. A blissful, content smile reached his face, and it stayed there as he packed his other clothes into the pink backpack; he didn't believe in a heaven, and even if he did, it couldn't have been better than this. She kissed him, right on his nose. "You are so, so cute," she said. "If we had time, I'd have you dance for me like a ballerina. But it's dinnertime, and this is going to take a long time. C'mon." She led him by the hand into the kitchen, and when he walked on tile rather than carpet, he found that his Mary Janes made little ticking sounds in addition to the tinkling of all his bells.

They were making zereshk polom, a name Richard couldn't pronounce, let alone spell. It was a very involved recipe, and Susie bit back a curse when she heard her father's incoming ringtone. "Do not let the rice burn," she told Richard, picking up the phone.

"Hi Dad, I'm in the middle of cooking something," she said immediately. She turned up the speaker so that Richard could hear the other end of the conversation.

"Hey, sweetie." The man's voice was subtly foreign, but there was no true accent at all. "Just checking to make sure that you're doing okay, that you haven't done anything too wild, or brought any boys over, anything like that." There was a smile in his voice, and Richard knew that he was calling just because he wanted to hear her voice.

"Daaaad!" Susie said, affectionately brattish. "Other than Fatima, the only person who's been in the house since you called literally wears a dress," she said, perfectly truthfully.

"Is she there now?" he asked.

"Nope, she's not," she replied, again being technically truthful.

"Okay, honey. Take care. Be careful with the stove. Love you."

"Love you too, Dad." She hung up, and then both she and Richard started breaking up laughing. "What, I didn't lie to him!" They shared laughter some more before continuing to cook.

"Who's Fatima?" Richard asked.

"My aunt, she comes here every morning, early, to check up on stuff," Susie said. "I think my dad's just scared that I'll throw a party that'll trash the place."

He laughed. "Yeah, because that's totally the thing that he should be worried about, right?"

"Don't you laugh, mister," she said in a fake, motherly voice. "You did something bad today, and for that, you must be punished, but we will deal with this after dinner."

"Okay," he quietly, demurely replied. He hoped it wasn't anything to do with how he'd treated Leslie. He'd never had to personally interact with someone that disabled before, and it had been incredibly awkward.

They finished the rest of the convoluted recipe, using techniques that Richard had never seen anyone use on his mother's favorite cooking shows, and although the final result smelled unlike anything he had eaten before - he had never even heard of a barberry before, let alone tasted one - it was, as promised, absolutely delicious as they sat at the family's expansive table, right next to each other, occasionally feeding each other small bites. Even Whiskers seemed to enjoy it. "So, um... what do you think I should be punished for?" he asked once they were finished.

"You tricked your sister to put you in a dress," she said in that affected, matronly tone, "and that was a very naughty thing to do." She marched into the kitchen and picked out a plastic spatula. "Over my knee, sissy." Richard meekly obeyed, laying over her on her expansive couch, and she pushed his dress and petticoats up, exposing his diapered rear to the air. "If you actually, really want me to stop," she added, quietly and seriously, "say the word 'boondoggle'. That's the safeword, just in case something bad happens."

"Okay," he agreed, not wanting to tell her that he already knew what a safeword was.

What she wanted to deliver was stinging slaps that would fade quickly; what she didn't want was to hit him with any real force. After a few experimental, light whacks on each petticoat-framed butt cheek, she found that holding the spatula lightly in her hand let her whip it quickly but gently, producing loud, sharp sounds and reddening his butt nicely. He yelped childishly on each strike, fully in character, as she alternated between cheeks for a dozen times, but even through his diaper, there was no hiding the fact that being dressed up, lovingly dominated, and spanked by this beautiful young princess was turning his dick into a tree trunk. And then the spatula slipped a bit, making a quarter rotation in her hand, and she wound up striking him harder than she intended and with the little serrations on the edge rather than the flat.

"Boondoggle! Boondoggle!"

"I'm so sorry, I'm so, so sorry!" she shrieked, dropping the spatula, wincing, and inwardly cursing herself for being so stupid. "Hold still, just let me take a look. Okay, it's just red, there's no bruise or anything. I didn't mean to hit you with the edge!"

He smiled, making himself relax. She hadn't hurt him all that badly and he doubted she even could. "It's okay. I'm sure you'll get a lot more practice," he told her, promising many more sessions just like this one in the future, and that promise triggered her lust. She had the perfect boy of her dreams and she wanted him. She wanted him forever.

"Turn over," she told him, "and I'll make it up to you."

He turned over, and she pushed him along the couch, put her head under his petticoats, pulled down his diaper just a bit, and spent five minutes making it up to him by giving him his very first experience of that kind, using a tried-and-true method of preventing anything from spilling. It crossed his mind that she, being two and a half years his senior, was technically using him to fulfill her own desires. He very deeply wanted to be used just like that, over and over again.

She kissed him when she was finished, and what he tasted on her lips was himself. "You can't stay overnight because of my aunt, so unless you want to walk home in the dark..." Even with the long, near-solstice days, it was getting late.

"Okay, I'm going," he said, and gave her a very deep and heartfelt hug, his chin on his shoulder and her chin on his puffed sleeve. He got up, picked up his cute backpack, and put it on.

"Aren't you forgetting something?!" she asked him as he walked to the door, his bells jingling.

"No, I'm pretty sure I've got everything," he replied. He'd been careful to pack it all.

She stared at him. "What about your clothes?!"

"They're all in here," he said, smiling and patting his glittery pink backpack. "See you tomorrow, Susie!" And then, with his urges so very happily satisfied and his spanked butt still feeling a little sore from where she'd messed up, he waved and started skipping down the hill as she stood at the door, still staring at him.

Of course, she'd expected him to go out the way he'd come in, walking home as a basically ordinary-looking girl. Heck, he was a boy, and it was getting into summer; if he'd wanted to, he could have washed off his face, pulled the scrunchies out of his hair, thrown away the diaper, and gone out bare-chested and commando in just his boys' pants and shoes, leaving absolutely all the girly stuff in the backpack to be picked up later.

But why would he have ever wanted to go out with a bare face and loose hair when he got to wear makeup and his hair in pretty pigtails with rainbow scrunchies? Why would he have chosen to wear ordinary boys' or girls' clothes when he had a pretty, jingly, baby pink dress that showed the whole world what a cutie he was? Why would he have ever chosen a plain, dark backpack when he could wear a really cute, bright pink one with rhinestones that sparkled in the evening sun? Why would he need pockets when he had his bright pink purse to carry his phone in? Why would he have decided to run or walk in his boys' socks and shoes when he could skip down the sidewalk in his ruffled, jingly, pink socks and cute, clicky Mary Janes?

The question wasn't who would let him. The question was, who would stop him?

He realized he had to pee. He'd been in various states of arousal all day, but now that Susie had so generously taken care of that, he felt his bladder pressing. He could have waited until he got home, but he chose to flood his diaper instead and continued skipping along in his pretty dress and wet diaper, just because he could. He got tired of skipping after a while, so he decided to take dainty little steps instead, not because the low heels on his Mary Janes were making him but because he felt cuter doing it.

He went down a bike path between some houses. A couple of kids were bouncing on a trampoline; they yelled hi to him, and he happily waved hello back. An old man walking his dog passed him, and the man was clearly trying not to stare at the pretty thing skipping past him, who smiled and waved at both him and his doggy. (He'd wanted to say something as well, but his voice would have given him away.) There was a shortcut down a dirt path, but he didn't want to get any of his pretty clothes dirty, so he kept going down sidewalks and on paved paths, where everyone could look out their windows and see him jingling along.

He had to poop, so he squatted down, pretending to be looking at something in the nearby tree grove, and went in his diaper. (He somewhat regretted that. The squishy poop brushed against his butt afterwards and it was actually kind of gross.)

It took fifteen minutes for him to make it home while skipping along and taking dainty steps, and he hadn't even made it to the door before she opened it. He'd fantasized that maybe Zoe would tell him to do a little twirl or something before she let him in, but instead, she immediately gestured for him to get in there right away, closing the door immediately once he did.

"Oh my God. She was serious. You actually did that," she said with a combination of amazement, disbelief, and quite a bit of respect. To force him to do that would have been raw, unforgivable cruelty; for him to willingly dress like that much of a sissy in public, ironically, took massive brass balls. "What if some creep was out there?"

He shrugged. "The bait's too obvious. I mean, if you saw someone else skipping out there dressed like this, would you think that you happened to see someone wearing this out there all alone, or that it was some kind of dare, or benefit thing, or ad campaign, publicity, whatever, and someone was already watching? A real creep would want to come after me in regular clothes, but he'd be a really dumb creep to do anything with me wearing this."

"Okay, but what if one of our neighbors tells Mom?"

"I didn't see any of them looking, and when's the last time you saw Mom talk to any of the neighbors?"

She exhaled. "I swear, you are just the most incredible..." she started but couldn't finish. "I put a nightie on your bed if you want it, you just wear whatever until tomorrow." She suspected, correctly, that he would choose to spend the rest of his day in his pretty dress.

"Can you change me first, please?"

"Change... oh. Okay, Diaper Buddy." She knew she'd be the one doing this sooner or later. She used one of the diapers in his backpack to change him in the kitchen where she'd changed Leslie, using a generous amount of wet wipes and powder. At least he didn't have a hard-on, and she probably would have noped out if he did. "I think you should change Leslie next time," she said.

"Why?"

"You're only seeing half the problem, being changed yourself. It's not just her that's affected by that. It's everyone who takes care of her, everyone who spends time with her."

A suspicion became a certainty. "When you said you were bi, did you mean with her?"

She tilted her head skyward. "God damn, Ricky, you are just... Yes. And before you ask anything else, what my girlfriend and I do and how we do it is none of your business. And you tell no one about this, and I mean no one, not even Caroline or Susie."

"If I figured it out, I'm pretty sure they already know," he said. "They obviously don't hate boys in dresses, I don't know why you'd think they hate lesbians. I thought you said no secrets? Caroline's not going to hurt you, Susie sure as hell isn't." He was as certain as any teenage boy could be that she was as desperately in love with him as he was with her.

"Friendships don't always last, and if Mom finds out... God, the things you did today, we did..." She suddenly felt a wave of fear and regret.

"Your friends aren't gonna tell her, and who else would?" Richard felt particularly confident just then. Maybe it was euphoria from his adventure, maybe an ironic wave of testosterone from what Susie had did with him. He didn't care. Wearing his dress made him feel like more of a whole person than he'd ever felt in his life. Earlier, he had been worried that his mother would ground them forever; after what he had done that day, he didn't. "If she tries something really crazy, I'm pretty sure I can stop it. She's not a monster, she's just stupid."

"I just hope you're right." She finished taping him up and patted his thigh gently. "And by the way, I know that not everything in that diaper was pee or poop."

"What my girlfriend and I do and how we do it is none of your business," he replied with a smirk, and then she started laughing, and he started laughing, and she walked away with her palm in her face.

He played three games of online Starcraft 2, and, even in his advanced league, only one of the opponents gave him any challenge at all. He wondered what they'd say if they knew that they'd gotten trounced by a thirteen-year-old boy in a jingly, frilly dress. (Then again, he mused, they could also be thirteen-year-old boys in frilly dresses. This was, after all, the internet.)

He carefully took off his pretty clothes, put on the soft, silky nightie his sister had left for him, and cuddled under the covers for the best sleep he'd ever had.


	3. A Day of Fun

Richard woke up early, a thing very unlike him. He'd had the most wonderful dream. He'd gotten all dressed up cutely and then spent time with some new friends and then been driven up the hill to the a beautiful princess's house and she'd given him the most enjoyable time of his life, then he'd skipped home wearing a jingly dress...

He sat up in bed, rubbed his eyes, and then looked down at his nightie, realizing that he'd actually done all of that. He sat there for a bit, still amazed and in mild bliss before remembering that he had chores he needed to finish. He'd wanted to try on that pink prom dress his sister had been shoved into on his birthday - and which she had left in his room, along with all the other girl stuff she would never wear again - but he'd be doing dishes and scrubbing the toilet and didn't want to risk it getting wet. Instead, he picked out a pink, floral-print housewife dress that could have been sixty years old, the tights that came with the prom dress and, after a bit of thought, his pink four-inch heels. (He'd wanted to wear his jingly socks again, but he'd been skipping in them yesterday and they needed to be washed.)

Then he carried his dress and heels to the bathroom, where he set them down on the closed toilet and started brushing his teeth. His diaper was, of course, still dry, and he would normally just let go in the shower, but that felt like cheating and not at all in the spirit of being diaper buddies with Leslie. Instead, he peeled it off with as little damage as possible, took some of his mother's sweet-smelling floral shampoo, washed his hair very thoroughly, and then took a small dollop of some thickly lavender-scented leave-in conditioner and followed the directions exactly because he'd never used it before. He dried himself thoroughly with a fluffy towel (particularly in his nether regions), put his diaper back on and taped it as snugly as he could, slipped on the light pink tights, lifted the floral dress over his head and buttoned up the front, and slipped on his high heels. He realized he still had to pee, but that's what his diaper was for, and he giggled lightly as he let go.

He looked in the mirror and smiled at his own reflection, twirling a bit. This dress was, of course, nowhere near as frilly or sweet as the thing he'd worn yesterday, but he enjoyed the sensation of the light fabric on his skin.

Four inches really was pretty high for him, especially with such thin heels, and he daintily, carefully minced downstairs, one hand on the railing, to pick up where he'd left off with the laundry. He put in the next load as Zoe had instructed him, but not knowing quite what to do with the dry clothes, he simply folded them up as delicately as he could and placed them on the ironing board. (He'd never heard of his mother actually ironing anything.) He minced over to the kitchen, realizing that everything seemed very far away with such little steps, and found some rubber gloves. Picking out the right cleaners with a lot of careful label reading, he very carefully minced back upstairs, found a stiff-bristled brush, carefully kneeled in his dress so as not to get it dirty, and cleaned the toilet, then decided to do the bathtub as well.

Once everything was nice and shiny, he minced downstairs, checked the timers on the washer and dryer (cleaning the toilet and bathtub didn't actually take that long), and lightly washed the few dishes before putting them in the dishwasher, making sure he was using the right liquid. Zoe had used the wrong one, once. Then he minced back to the laundry room and went through another load of clothes, enjoying the pleasant, girly buzz he was getting from being a good little sissy. What else could he do? Oh, right, the lawn - but the lawn would have to be handled after morning rush hour. Jingling home had been one thing, but waking the whole neighborhood up with a lawnmower would have been very unwise.

Instead, he decided to clean off the cabinets and counters, throwing away a bunch of old trash that had been accumulating for a while. (Their mother could be something of a hoarder and would surely be worse without her children. On the bright side, she would never seriously look in either of their closets.) He went for the stove next, and cleaning that out was really rather disgusting and nasty, but he perservered by reminding himself that he was a dutiful little sissy, and he didn't realize how long it was actually taking him until he realized that he couldn't hear the washer anymore, and he minced back to do yet another load of laundry, including his jingly dress and socks. He placed his own clothes in a laundry basket, carefully making his way up the stairs again, smiling coyly at how hard his heels made everything and enjoying the subtle helpless feeling that his wet diaper was giving him. He heard his sister in her room but minced back downstairs to finish his chores.

"Hey, Ricky," Zoe said, going up to him as he worked. He was wondering if she would laugh at him for doing chores he didn't even need to do while wearing four-inch heels no one had told him to wear. Instead, she handed him his phone. "You need to get in our chat, and you've gotta read this." He unlocked it and added them all as friends - even his sister hadn't been on his friends list - got into their private server, and read, or tried to read, what she was talking about.

Leslie, her diaphragm's weakness forcing a degree of quiet on her in the physical world, could be incredibly chatty online. Richard scrolled up to read line after line of her discussing an doctor's appointment that would "finally, actually" happen in the middle of next month, and she continued on and on about a triple approach of some sort of CRISPR-based gene therapy, X-linked reactivation (Richard had absolutely no idea what that was), and engineered, allogeneic (whatever the hell that meant) stem cells. Apparently, choosing to give just one of these experimental treatments to a human being was considered unethical, so she needed to get all of them at once. Dr. Sinchurch, the lead researcher, had advised her parents not to get too hopeful, but Leslie had used the word 'cure' more than once.

"Holy crap," Richard said. "Is she actually going to be free of that?" He was viscerally reminded of the difference between a fetish and a problem. The games he was playing with himself (and, even more enjoyably, with Susie) weren't real, and he would never want them to be.

"She thinks so," Zoe replied. "If it works, that would be the most... God, I can't even describe..." Her voice was breathless, and Richard expected her to start crying tears of joy at any moment. Richard was also reminded that this was her girlfriend, someone she surely cared about the way he cared about Susie, and he could not have even imagined his feelings if it were Susie in Leslie's position.

"Oh, hey," Richard said before his sister really started crying, "I folded up a bunch of your and Mom's clothes, I don't know where they go."

She smiled widely at him. "Don't worry about that part, I'll handle the female clothes," Zoe said, and pretended to think for a bit. "Well, the female clothes worn by actual females," she finished, giggling, leaving him to finish cleaning the stove.

He had a single burrito for breakfast along with his sister, as she'd mentioned that they'd probably be eating somewhere nice that day, and he did the lawn as he'd intended: with his housewife dress on, his feet in his heeled sneakers, and his face made up so that he really looked like a girl. He probably did go a bit more quickly than he should have, but the end result was even stripes around the small front and back lawns, and then he realized that he was actually tired, put his four-inch heels back on because he loved how his feet felt in them, put the last load of laundry into the washing machine, meticulously dried the dishes, and went to play pirated Skyrim featuring mods from places that thirteen-year-olds were not allowed to be, only realizing later that he'd completely forgotten to ask for a change. Oh well. Instead of bugging his big sister, he decided to just be a good girly boy and stay in his wet diaper.

As he put the laundry into the dryer, the Discord chat warned him that his friends were arriving, and he curtseyed to them as they came in, enjoying their light giggles.

"Hey, Zoe, I was going to wait until we got there," Leslie said, "but it's starting to get bad. I'm sorry..."

"Leslie, it's okay, remember? It's always okay. Besides, if it's all right with you, I want Ricky to change you so he can see what it's like." After a bit of thought, Leslie agreed, and Richard realized that what he was about to do was unwrap a piece of plastic trash to uncover concentrated, raw sewage. Immediately, he gained a deep appreciation for the world's parents and a low contempt for all the nonconsensual diaper fetish stuff he'd seen. Doing this for someone he cared about was bad enough; doing it to someone he hated, on an ongoing basis, would have required him to not be merely sadistic but entirely devoted to the cause of sadism, especially if he wanted to do it properly. Trying not to show any visible reaction to the smell - he didn't want to make this worse for her - he wiped her up front-to-back, trying to avoid any hint of doing anything sexual, and added powder before laying a new diaper under her and taping her up as Zoe instructed.

"So, how was it, really?" Leslie asked.

Richard felt put in an awkward position. "I really, really hope that treatment works," he replied to get out of it, and the group laughed, even Leslie.

Leslie smiled at him. "Okay, my turn to change you." She could tell he was wet. "I've never changed anyone before." Richard was surprised, but agreed. Leslie had a difficult time changing herself due to the weakness of her core muscles, but her arms were mostly fine, and with the help of her friends to move her into a good position along with his cooperation, she had lifted up his housewife dress, removed the diaper, and wiped him swiftly.

"Don't put him in a new one," Caroline said. "Probably not a good idea to risk it on the way there. Ricky, go wear your boy clothes and bring a pair of swimming trunks. Leslie has to be at the Y at 12, that's not negotiable." Richard understood and quickly started mincing up to his room to change, the girls enjoying watching him totter on his heels. "And bring those sneakers Susie got you. I'll handle the rest." Richard methodically took off his housewife attire, shoving it all into the back of the closet just in case his mother got home unexpectedly, then put on his swimming trunks and, over those, a set of the boy clothes he'd gotten from the thrift store, putting on his regular black sneakers and tossing the heeled ones in his school backpack.

He hopped down the stairs, locked the door behind him (he'd remembered his house key this time), and rushed out to the car as they were helping Leslie in, jumping into the open front door. "Hey, if Leslie needs room, why isn't she the one up front?" Richard asked. He'd have liked to be next to Susie as much as possible.

"Too dangerous," Caroline replied immediately as she pulled out. "Middle back is the safest place in any collision. And I wouldn't want to hit her with an air bag, either." It was only then that he started really paying attention to the way Caroline drove: focused and careful, with her head on a swivel for people less careful than her. She was, after all, a car girl, and he was certain that she was a better driver than nearly everyone else on the road, let alone other people her age.

"How'd you even meet each other?"

"I was wondering if you were ever going to ask that. Our shop does repair, but it's mostly customs. Her dad needed a wheelchair lift added to his SUV, and our parents just kept going for a while about dimensions, structure, comfort, everything. Business was slow, and I didn't have anything else to do, so we just kind of started talking. Met Susie pretty much the same way. Her dad wanted a whole lot of stuff added to his car."

"And I met Susie after your birthday party," Zoe continued. "This was after I'd taken that junior prom dress off. I just needed to be away from Mom and out of that house. Just had to make sure those damn cousins didn't see me leave. We met on the back trails."

"She really needed someone to talk to," Susie said, "and I am very glad I did." He heard the smile in her voice. He'd expected her and everyone to start treating him subtly differently once he was dressed like a boy again, but they didn't. He was simply Ricky to them either way, even to Susie, and that knowledge gave him a deep sense of well-being.

The Y, as many places were, was mostly empty. Leslie, of course, had a full membership; Caroline casually said "Susie, you or me?" and Susie pulled out a twenty to get the rest of them in. On the way to the lockers, they were swiftly greeted by a smiling, tall woman who looked like she could be a lifeguard.

"Mindy! Did you hear about the treatment?" Leslie asked.

"I definitely heard," the woman replied in an understanding voice that came off as neither clinical nor condenscending. "I really hope this works out. It would mean a lot if it did, to you and a lot of other people as well. Would you like to introduce your friends?"

"This is Susie, Zoe, and Ricky," Leslie said, gesturing to each of them. "This is is my physical therapist, Mindy," she continued, gesturing to the smiling woman. "She's helped me a ton."

"I'm very glad you're all here," Mindy said. "In my professional experience, having supportive friends means a lot. You don't have to get involved, you don't have to say anything, you can swim wherever you want, but I just want you to be around for her. That's important." They all nodded. She gently patted Leslie on the shoulder. "C'mon, let's get you ready." They all went off to change, Richard feeling rather alone in the men's locker room, wondering if he could pass when wearing a girls' swimsuit and figuring he couldn't. Maybe if he were younger, perhaps if there were plenty of frills extending from the midsection to hide anything boyish.

He stripped quickly in the empty locker room, tossing his clothes into his backpack. Lacking a lock, he carefully stashed it somewhere that no one would find it, and went out to swim. Where were they? Oh. Right. Girls, and one of them was disabled. Dipping his toe into the shallow end, he got in. He actually hadn't swam for a while; the last time he'd worn his trunks was at the water park a couple weeks ago, where his mother had fortunately just let him and his sister run around in the warm weather. He experimentally made a few strokes, starting with a dog paddle and gradually working up to moves he'd learned many years ago.

"Having fun?" Susie asked, and he looked up at her in her bikini, which was a few shades darker than her skin, and his swimming trunks immediately began to tent under the water. She slipped in the water next to him, and they hugged deeply and kissed lightly, and he fully realized that he had an actual girlfriend and not just when he was dressed like a girl himself.

"Race you to the other side," she said, and he immediately started going after her. She won handily; she'd obviously been practicing freestyle, and he struggled to really get going with anything but a basic breaststroke, and it felt like his head didn't want to stay above the water.

"I need to swim more," he lamented as he finally reached the other side of the Olympic-sized pool.

"You just needed something to chase," she said teasingly, kissing him again and swimming back. He tried to copy her movements as best he could, learning freestyle swimming the hard way, kicking his legs as hard as he could. He did better that time, he thought, and then she kissed him again and swam back. He realized that this probably counted as some kind of physical training, that she was using her feminine wiles to spur him on. What was he going to do? Not swim after her? 

She did the same thing out and back again, and then he confessed that he really was exhausted and out of shape from not having done this for a while, and they sat around watching Leslie and Mindy for a bit, the therapist pushing Leslie as hard as she would go. Zoe always tried to stay close to them, even though she enjoyed diving as deep as she could. Caroline was actually a decent swimmer as well, and there were a couple of older guys, the only other patrons in the pool, surreptitiously trying not to look at her as they did their own swimming.

It was a solid hour of exercise and companionship, and Richard's muscles were burning by the time Mindy helped Leslie out of the pool. He'd have greatly loved to have spent time in the hot tub with them, but it was closed indefinitely 'for the health and safety of our guests'. 'Fuck this pandemic,' Richard almost said aloud.

And then Caroline walked up to him and whispered in his ear, and he smiled.

Ten minutes later, if anyone had been paying attention to the security cameras, it would have seemed like a scene from a spy movie: A disabled girl sits in her wheelchair outside a women's locker room in a lesser-used part of the facility. A boy in swimming trunks approaches, and she presses a couple of buttons on her phone. As he walks past, a couple of girls open the door in front of him and quickly whisk him inside. Two minutes later, four girls leave the bathroom and walk towards the back entrance, a well-developed one wearing the boy's backpack, another pushing the girl in the wheelchair.

Richard was amazed at how quickly they'd managed to transform him, although they'd had not only his consent but his active participation. His swimming trunks had come off at the same time his bra had gone on, a very special something that Caroline had concocted last year as a gift to a friend, which had been worn only once and then returned. She'd used a sports bra, shredded tire rubber, fabric, and epoxy to make it, and although the results were far from bouncy or jiggly, they looked legitimate under the pink T-shirt (advertising her father's business) that she'd given him.

They'd also swiftly put him into a diaper, a set of butt-padded granny-like underwear that Caroline had also made, and pink shorts that barely covered that underwear. Zoe had made up his face in record time, and Susie had put his hair into a high ponytail while he'd put on his pink socks (no bells) and white heeled sneakers. It would take very close observation to realize that he was wearing a diaper or wasn't really a girl, and anyone making observations that close would probably wind up in the back of a police car.

Of course, they didn't want to walk past the receptionist who had let them in, so they took the back way around, Richard feeling very conscious of the way he was swaying his padded butt as he walked, his new breasts swaying back and forth a bit as well. They were certainly even heavier than the real thing, and although the sports bra keeping them steady, he was also self-conscious of his motions and balance. He felt very uncertain of himself, very dependent on the people around him, and very, very girly, and he gave a light, coquettish smile.

He still got shotgun, and he knew that anyone who was looking would see the cute girl with the nice breasts up front. He felt actually worried for a bit, but it wasn't like he had any other friends who might recognize him, and at that moment he just really didn't care anyway, any more than he had when he was skipping along yesterday. The only thing that really concerned him was the way his seat belt went between his rubber boobs.

"All right, what does everyone want for lunch?" Caroline asked.

"Hey Leslie, can you eat sushi?" Susie casually asked. Richard was getting used to her tones of voice. The more casual she sounded, the more money she was preparing to spend. There was no way she could always throw this much of it around. It was certainly because of him, and he was sure without even asking that he was her first real boyfriend.

"I'll ask Dad, it's his lunch break, too." He picked up the phone almost at once. "Hey, Dad. Yeah, swimming went fine. Is sushi okay for me? Well, yeah. Right, cool. Thanks, Dad." She hung up. "He says sushi and rice are good for me, just to stay away from the salt."

"This place, that means stay away from the soy sauce," Susie said, and, seeing no objections from anyone (Zoe and Richard had never had sushi in their lives), gave Caroline the address to put in her car's GPS.

"Can we stop at the pharmacy?" Leslie asked, seeing it up ahead as they drove down a main road. "I'm kinda low." She did not need to explain what she was low on.

"Sure, I'll get 'em." She stopped in and was in and out within a single minute, a package of absorbent, low-visibility adult diapers in a plastic bag.

"Wow, you just walked right in and bought those and nothing else," Richard pointed out. He would have wanted to create a greater shopping list and throw the diapers in with other things.

"Yeah, nobody's going to ask why when you're buying diapers," Caroline said. "What kind of answer would you expect? 'It's for my grandma.' 'It's for my disabled friend.' Or better yet, 'I have incontinence.' And then the cashier just feels like a royal asshole for asking. Besides, not asking questions like that's gotta be something they teach in day one of orientation there. First rule of selling medical shit, don't humiliate your customers."

"I can pay for it, if you want," Leslie said.

"Don't worry about it. I'm not at Susie's level but just don't worry about it." Her father had upgraded her from "Daddy's little helper" to "actual assistant" a couple years ago, paying her increasing amounts of money to do increasingly vital things.

It was, of course, an upscale sushi restaurant, and given that the waitress greeted Susie by name - even despite it being closed for months, previously - he was very certain that she and/or her father had made an enormous splash in there before. The place had re-opened the previous day for sit-down traffic, and there were only a handful of other people sitting in a far booth, and Zoe quietly whispered in her brother's ear, "She's about to keep this place open." He only nodded.

"Just get what you can eat," Susie advised, and then they started talking about all the different items, and Richard had noticed that all of them were worried about whether or not what they were getting would be enough or too much, and pointed out a family smorgasbord platter and a large pot of tea that they could simply split, and that had been the right decision. It also meant that Richard didn't need to talk out loud to the waitress.

Zoe breathed a small sigh. "Just to be able to finally get here... I'm not talking about affording anything, I'm talking about just getting here at all. I actually asked to eat here, something small, just because I wanted to try it, remember, Richelle?" she settled on to call him. He didn't remember, as she'd been ten or so at the time. "Oh no, of course we couldn't afford it. Meanwhile, that Christmas abomination and that stupid vanity must have cost, even second hand..." She realized that she was ruining the mood while probably talking about money too much in front of Susie, and stopped. She looked at Caroline with a smile. "I swear, around here, a driver's license is like a superpower." She wondered when she'd ever be able to make use of one.

"Meanwhile, Susie's got Batman's superpower," Richard quietly said. He knew it was a violation of Rule 1, but it was funny.

Caroline, Leslie, and Zoe all turned to look at him. "Richelle, you know she lost her mom, right?" Caroline asked.

"Oh crap I'm sorry!" Richard whispered, covering his mouth, his arm resting against one of his heavy boobs. It hadn't even occurred to him to ask why Susie only ever mentioned her dad. Fortunately, Susie wasn't familiar with comic book universes, and they gently, patiently explained to her what Batman's 'superpower' was and that his parents had been killed. "So.. what happened to your mom?" Richard quietly asked after she'd understood how he'd messed up.

"Lung cancer happened to her," Susie replied. "And she never even smoked. Zoe told me about your dad." Richard just nodded.

"By the way, I actually do have a mom, we just don't get along well," Caroline said. "And Leslie's parents, well..."

"We're having lunch, and I have a loving mom and dad," Leslie said pointedly. "I am not talking about my birth parents in a good sushi restaurant." She seemed to despise them even more than her disease.

"Yeah, only talk about them in a bad one in case we need to puke," Caroline replied, but did not explain. "Anyway, the reason I hang with you four is that, well, here's ordinary high schoolers," she said, holding her hand at a certain level, and then raised her hand a fair bit. "And here's you. Being someone's friend means having to put up with their bullshit, and the friendship-to-bullshit ratio of the Squad is good enough to make me want to keep driving you around." Her tone gave away the fact that she'd had many friendships that did not have such a good ratio. "Besides," she quietly continued to Richard with a grin, "I never thought I'd ever meet a boy quite like you." Richard blushed a bit, self-consciously holding his arms over his rubber breasts.

"He's mine," Susie said offhandedly.

"Pfft. I don't want to marry him. You wanna know who I plan to marry?" They all looked at her. "A charter pilot. Not some big plane, he goes where the company tells him to, pilot. I want a guy who flies a small plane up in Alaska somewhere and can take me anywhere in North America. Day I find him, I'll take you all up with me." She smiled wistfully. "And then I won't the only one here without a partner." Zoe and Leslie stared at her, mouths open. "You seriously thought you were hiding it?!"

"Zoe, I told you it was really obvious," Richard added. Susie kept quiet, feeling a bit embarrassed at not having realized it earlier. She'd seen some signs but didn't think they were actually girlfriends in that way; upon reflection, it really was pretty clear that they had something going on.

"Okay, look, if Mom finds out..." Zoe started, but Caroline just pointed straight at Richard's fake breasts. She was seventeen and had just actively contributed to the willing feminization of a thirteen-year-old boy. None of them was going to let any of them there get in trouble for anything, or everything would come down on all of them. "Right, sorry, being dumb. Hey, I think that's our food."

It was, of course, extremely high-class, very well presented, and absolutely delicious, and they dug in. With the unfamiliar and heavy mounds on his chest getting in the way of his arms, Richard had to be careful how he ate, and he wound up taking small, girlish bites that made him feel even cuter, and he liked the idea that any boys trying to hit on him would be in for an unpleasant surprise. (Although, he mused, it wouldn't be all that unpleasant for the right - or, rather, wrong - boy. He was very glad he had Susie instead.)

Caring somewhat less about their secret, Zoe and Leslie were feeding each other bites, and then Susie poked Richard and opened her mouth as well, and they took turns feeding each other the same way, giggling softly.

Of course they ate it all. Richard confirmed that the girls were full before he happily ate every scrap of food left on the platter, even if he was doing it with feminine bites as they talked. The total cost was seventy five-something and Susie paid with five twenties and told the waitress to keep the change.

"All right, how's everyone for frolfing?" Caroline asked. None of them even knew what that meant. "Not one of you has played frisbee golf before." None of them had, and they wanted to try. "Fortunately, the park is wide open and nearly empty this time of day, so almost nobody is going to be looking at us."

"I'm not that worried about being seen as a girl," Richard said. It wasn't like he had other friends who would recognize him, and the odds of him being seen by anyone from his school and recognized later were miniscule.

"I don't mean that, I mean no one's going to watch any of you suck at it."

Caroline was right about everything. Richard had thought that the boobs, butt padding, and mild heels would get in his way, but they really didn't, not for the distances he was throwing. If he did a full arm movement, he'd have completely missed the mark or wildly overshot anyway, as Caroline pointed out. The game was actually fair to Leslie, although, in her wheelchair, she couldn't pick up her disc on her own.

It actually took patience, waiting for everyone's turn, and frustration, as all of the newbies did in fact suck at it. None of them really cared; they were with their friends and they were having fun, four girls and one girly boy out at the park together, and that was all that mattered.

Caroline dropped off Leslie with Zoe - the cat being out of the bag meant that no one had to invente reasons for that - before arriving at Susie's place. She had a show she'd wanted to Ricky to watch with her, and it wasn't what he expected at all. Eating leftover zereshk polo with his girlfriend and other friend, with his head against his girlfriend's breast and her cat laying on top of him while they all watched a Persian rom-com together, wasn't what he expected to be doing that evening, especially not while he wore fake breasts and butt padding, but it was enjoyable all the same. (He would never have watched something like that by himself. Being with Susie made everything better.) And then the show finally ended and Susie gave her boyfriend a deep, meaningful smile.

"I'm going to go practice pool for a half hour or so. I hope you two don't get up to anything while I'm not looking. That would just be a shame," Caroline said, completely tonelessly, as she walked away.

"Do you have a pool table or an actual pool?" Richard asked.

"Both," Susie replied. He almost asked to go try the table, but she clearly wanted to play an entirely different game involving sticks, balls, and holes, and they were pulling each other's clothes off within seconds, and his shoulders were relieved to be rid of the heavy bra. "Well, this one's a waste," she said, laughing as she realized that she'd torn his diaper off. She flipped over on the ground to put them in the standard 69 position, and Richard had absolutely no idea what to do except stick his tongue in and start licking at whatever looked good. It was easier for her, as just having her mouth on it was more than enough for him.

"Ricky, that tickles!" she squealed a few minutes in.

"Isn't that why it's called a coochie?" he asked. "Coochie coochie coo!" He started tickling her intentionally, and as she started laughing, he let loose. Spluttering loudly, she turned to look at him, and he started laughing as well. "You are just the worst!" she shouted, still laughing, and he returned to his task, and under the ministrations of his tongue, her giggling turned into something else entirely, and her rapid movements were a sure sign that she was absolutely not faking it. "I can't remember the last time I ate out twice in one day," he said once she was done.

"Ate out? What.. you're horrible," she said, laughing. "I couldn't have guessed a boy like you would have that kind of mouth."

"You enjoyed my mouth just now," he pointed out.

"And you've enjoyed mine twice. So what are you going to get me in return, hmm?"

"I wish I could. Seriously, I really do wish I could. But what could I get the princess who has everything?"

"Is that how you think of me? As a princess?" He nodded and admitted it. "That's good. That's perfect." She put on an imperious air. "From now on, when we're by ourselves, you will call me 'Your Highness'."

"Yes, Your Highness," he obediently said.

"Good boy. Your first task as my official servant is to help me put my clothes back on," she ordered him. He put her shirt, panties, and skirt back on, and she helped with his shirt and shorts as well, although the diaper was toast and he decided to forgo the heavy padding, making him more obviously a boy in girls' clothes. "Your next task is to massage my feet."

He had no idea what he was doing, of course, kneeling as she sat on the couch with a haughty look on her face, but he kneaded them gently and she seemed to appreciate it. "I am coming up the stairs," Caroline intoned robotically, slowly way up. "I sure hope nothing happened while I was down there."

"Absolutely nothing happened at all," Richard said in the same robotic tone, sitting on the couch next to Susie.

"Good, because I need to go get Leslie home. You want a ride or stay here?"

"Take the ride," Susie told him, and he put his socks and heeled sneakers back on, stuffing the padding in his backpack. "We'll have tomorrow, and the day after, and when your mom goes to work and my dad's not home we'll have plenty of time after that." She kissed him goodbye, and with a spring in his step, he followed Caroline out to the car.

"I just don't understand you," Caroline said as they got in. "You're obviously hetero, sometimes you dress like a total sissy, you do chores dressed like a housewife for the thrill, you don't have a problem with going out as a girl, you call yourself a boy..."

"If you want to understand me, stop putting me in categories," he told her.

"Shit. You're right. I'm the asshole, and that was stupid. Sorry."

"It's fine. None of you actually judge me for liking this stuff."

"Honestly, I'm having fun with it. Probably not as much fun as you are, though. Also, just by the way, I know you've just found the girl of your dreams, but don't forget your sister, either. Remember who her girlfriend is. If it all works out for Leslie, some of this'll be different, but she needs you as much as you need her. Especially if your mom gets stupid."

"I know."

Once they arrived, Zoe pushed Leslie out the door in her wheelchair, being extra careful with the step, and Richard wondered whether it wouldn't have been better for her to walk. Oh, right, she probably had just been moving her legs a whole lot while they were doing something that was not his business.

Richard put on another diaper (he didn't want to explain that one to Zoe) and played three games of Starcraft 2 that evening, two in which he completely rocked face and one in which the opponent, exceptionally good, eked out a victory over him.

He went to bed, planning to enjoy another night of excellent sleep. He had friends he absolutely trusted, a wonderful girlfriend, and even his disabled friend was going to be able to get well. He securely and happily snuggled himself under the covers in his freshly laundered nightie and warm blankets, safe and secure in the unconscious certainty that everything was going to be fine, nothing bad was going to happen to any of them, nothing terrible and unforeseen would occur, and absolutely nothing was going to go wrong.


	4. The Wrong Things Go Wrong

Richard awoke to banging on the door. Thinking it was his mom or some other relative, he immediately panicked and pulled off his nightie and still-dry diaper, stashed them in a drawer as fast as he could, tossed on his boxer shorts, and opened the door, his heart racing.

"Oh it's just you," he said in a single quick breath after seeing Zoe. She'd startled him badly.

"Ricky, check Discord," she said in a very, very serious tone, and he did. The messages he saw on his phone were much, much worse than a startling wake-up knock.

[8:30 AM] Leslie: I can't describe my feelings (edited)  
[8:33 AM] Leslie: Can't type (edited)  
[8:45 AM] Leslie: There was a letter from my birth parents' lawyer this morning.  
[8:48 AM] Leslie: They're suing for custody and to stop the therapy.  
[8:53 AM] Leslie: THEY HAVE IT OIN FACRBOOK ITS ALL OVER THER FICKING FACEBOOMK  
[8:53 AM] Leslie: THAT TTHEY"RE **RESCUING** ME FROM EXPDIRIMENTAL THRAPY  
[8:55 AM] Leslie: THEY'RE JUST DOIGN IT TO STEAL MY SOCIAL SECUITY DISABILITY CHKECS  
[8:56 AM] Leslie: SO THEY CAN BUY MORE DRUGS (edited)

Leslie posted a link, and Ricky clicked on it. "What the fuck?" he said aloud. The lunatics had made a (very low traffic) "Help Us Save Leslie!" Facebook page. And they were accepting donations. It was transparently nonsense, all of it, full of obviously bogus statements and very bad graphics.

[8:58 AM] Caroline: holy fuck  
[8:58 AM] Caroline: fuck it im calling everyone  
[9:00 AM] Susie: I don't even know what to say right now.  
[9:02 AM] Zoe: What the hell! What even the hell!!!  
[9:02 AM] Zoe: Leslie didn't you tell me that your parents won custody forever?????  
[9:03 AM] Zoe: How is this even possible  
[9:04 AM] Leslie: I DONT KNOW MY DAD IS READY TO SCREAM  
[9:04 AM] Leslie: I CANT BELIEVE THEY DOD THIS  
[9:04 AM] Leslie: PLEASE TELL ME THIS IS A NIGHTMRAE  
[9:04 AM] Caroline: tbh someone should have been planned for this  
[9:04 AM] Caroline: *should have planned  
[9:05 AM] Caroline: but this is hannibal lecter  
[9:05 AM] Zoe: Why tf would a judge let them get custody or stop the therapy?  
[9:06 AM] Caroline: you dont know how the courts work  
[9:06 AM] Caroline: judges have done way worse  
[9:07 AM] Caroline: they push it, they can tie this all up for months or years  
[9:07 AM] Caroline: meanwhile the therapy is delayed until it's all resolved  
[9:07 AM] Caroline: sorry have to go to work now  
[9:07 AM] Zoe: Ricky needs to know too, waking him up  
[9:08 AM] Leslie: Let him sleep, he doesn't need this  
[9:09 AM] Susie: Neither do you...

Richard tried to comprehend the enormity of the situation. He'd thought that if anything terrible or unexpected were ever going to happen. it would involve him or Zoe. Maybe their mother would find out about the dresses and diapers and freak out; of course, the idea of her punishing him by forcing him to keep wearing them wasn't remotely in the realm of plausibility, and he'd never been able to read those kinds of stories without laughing. Maybe she'd find some small part of it, maybe she'd know he went around as a girl, and he'd have to deflect that. The worst things he had considered were that maybe their mother would find out about Zoe's relationship with Leslie, or, God forbid, something would try to get between him and Susie.

But no, it couldn't be something that nice or simple. It couldn't be a "Someone saw you skipping around in a jingling dress outside". He didn't get a "Hey, a waitress at a restaurant saw you in with breasts and a padded butt" or even a "Are you really wearing a diaper?" He didn't have a falling-out with his new friends, none of them had done anything mean or taken anything too far. Once he'd revealed his secret to Zoe, nobody had tried to hurt him or humiliate him or even slightly embarrass him, unless sucking at swimming and frisbee golf counted.

Instead, just yesterday, Leslie had been given renewed hope of reversing her disease, of regaining bladder and bowel control along with the ability to walk unassisted. Then her drug addict parents had stolen that hope in order to use it to steal her social security checks as well. And, if they were to succeed, their birth daughter would live an increasingly agonized life of abuse, misery, and despair until she was either rescued later, having suffered from increasingly severe crippling health problems, or her diaphragm gave out and she simply stopped breathing.

The rest of the Squad could never have comprehended it in the way that he did: Leslie's birth parents were fucking monsters. If the girls knew just how much anger, how much utterly destructive hate, he was feeling just then, it would have terrified them. He deeply, from the bottom of his soul, wanted nothing more than the death - the utter annihilation - of those monsters.

For a single second, an enormous sense of dissociation hit him and he felt like he could see behind the walls.

There was another monster on his Discord friends list, something he hadn't talked to in well over half a year. Whatever it was - he knew there had to be a human there but he had a really hard time thinking of it as human - had given him, with very little prompting, an introductory lesson on the nature and varieties of evil, for no other reason than to shatter his then twelve-year-old innocence, just as Richard had wanted it to do because he didn't want his innocence anymore. 'Call me', the thing in the darkness had told him at the very end, 'if you ever have monster problems of your own.'

He told it he had monster problems, and within fifteen seconds, even though they hadn't spoken for a long time, it asked for details. He gave them, in between bouts of swearing and vowing destruction upon the monsters that were going to hurt their own daughter for drug money. It dismissed all his feelings as irrelevant, adolescent angst and refused to provide direct help. Instead, it gave him, typed (or copypasted) very quickly in simple language, highly rational and surprisingly detailed instructions that gave him a pattern of exactly what to do, why to do it, and how to go about doing it. He decided to follow them.

He wasn't about to ask Zoe for a change, not while this was going on, so he went to the bathroom first, brushing his teeth quickly, standing at the toilet for twenty seconds, and taking a small sip of water. He took his boxer shorts off, put the diaper back on as a reminder of the importance of his task, and got to work.

[9:20 AM] Richard: I have something I need to do. I probably won't have time to be with anyone today. I'll let you know when I can. I love you, Susie.  
[9:21 AM] Susie: Do what you need to. I love you, too.  
[9:22 AM] Zoe: He won't tell me what it is either. He just says I should trust him.  
[9:22 AM] Leslie: Then you should probably trust him.  
[9:22 AM] Zoe: All right, I'll trust that you trust him enough to tell me to trust him.  
[9:24 AM} Leslie: But do you trust that I trust you enough to trust you to trust him?  
[9:26 AM] Zoe: Yes, I think I can trust you to trust me enough to trust me to trust him, but can I trust you to trust me to trust you to trust me enough to trust me to trust him?  
[9:26 AM] Susie: I trust that you two can keep this up forever.  
[9:27 AM] Leslie: Then you trust... poorly.  
[9:27 AM] Zoe: :laughing:  
[9:27 AM] Susie: :laughing:  
[9:29 AM] Leslie: I needed a laugh so bad. Thanks.  
[9:35 AM] Caroline: lol  
[9:35 AM] Caroline: lets just actually trust him, not like theres any good options  
[9:35 AM] Caroline: tbh i want to posse up some ptsd veterans with tire irons but dad says no  
[9:37 AM] Susie: Where would you find veterans with PTSD and tire irons?  
[9:52 AM] Caroline: in the shop where im helping dad rn  
[9:52 AM] Caroline: back to work  
[10:42 AM] Susie: I want to go back to yesterday, when our biggest problem was having Ricky pass as a girl.  
[10:43 AM] Zoe: world's biggest **ikr**  
[10:44 AM] Leslie: :regional_indicator_i: :regional_indicator_k: :regional_indicator_r:  
[12:11 PM] Zoe: I'm legit scared right now. Really, really scared. For Leslie and Ricky.  
[12:13 PM] Zoe: I put my ear to his door and he is saying some SCARY PSYCHO SHIT. Like he's chanting demon summoning in english instead of latin. Sometimes he types and sometimes he clicks, and it's not some game he's playing. It sounds like he's trying to summon internet satan or something.  
[12:14 PM] Susie: Maybe he's just being edgy because he's mad?  
[12:15 PM] Zoe: This isn't some fucking chuuni shit.  
[12:16 PM] Zoe: Maybe it **is** chuuni, but he's still **doing** something in there.  
[12:16 PM] Susie: Is he a hacker?  
[12:17 PM] Zoe: He could be? He's done things like that  
[12:24 PM] Zoe: He just sounds like he wants to seriously hurt somebody and doesn't care how.  
[12:45 PM] Zoe: He's REALLY frustrated. I hope he didn't punch a hole in the wall.  
[12:48 PM] Caroline: would give your mom something else to focus on if he did  
[1:17 PM] Zoe: Just right now I just heard him say Got you now, you son of a bitch  
[1:18 PM] Caroline: thats leslies bio dad, if its not ILL wear any fking dress you want  
[1:20 PM] Susie: Do not try to stop him.  
[1:21 PM] Zoe: I won't.  
[1:40 PM] Leslie: He's not the only one. Dad just called, he's taking personal time because he's too angry and can't focus. Mom's coming home soon too.  
[1:43 PM] Susie: I didn't know your parents could leave you at home alone.  
[1:45 PM] Leslie: There's so much space age assistive stuff in here, all on a big UPS so if the grid goes down I'm ok.  
[1:47 PM] Leslie: My bio mom and dad have literally 0, will mention that at hearing, thanks for reminding me.  
[1:50 PM] Caroline: cant believe they dont just let you choose at 14, seriously fuck this state  
[1:50 PM] Leslie: That's what Dad said this morning.  
[2:40 PM] Zoe: Ricky literally just screamed fuck for the past two minutes.  
[2:42 PM] Zoe: I asked him if he was all right and he just said no  
[2:44 PM] Zoe: He hasn't showered, he hasn't eaten all day, he's just in a diaper and I don't think he's used it  
[2:48 PM] Susie: He's in "the zone", don't pull him out.  
[2:55 PM] Caroline: he has to drink eat pee poop or pass out eventually zoe. before he does just let him do his thing  
[2:57 PM] Susie: He's got a diaper for the third and fourth things.  
[2:59 PM] Caroline: lol good point  
[3:00 PM] Zoe: Three o clock and all's hell  
[3:02 PM] Zoe: just a couple of days ago I told him he had no diligence  
[3:03 PM] Zoe: and I swear to god he didn't  
[3:05 PM] Zoe: It's like he's possessed  
[3:10 PM] Leslie: Tell him he needs to take care of himself too.  
[3:12 PM] Zoe: I did at like 10 this morning, he doesn't want to hear it  
[3:46 PM] Zoe: Never heard him laugh like that before.  
[3:47 PM] Susie: Not even yesterday?  
[3:47 PM] Zoe: This wasn't a nice kind of laugh.  
[3:48 PM] Zoe: This was some supervillain shit.  
[3:51 PM] Susie: So you're saying I have a crossdressing supervillain for a boyfriend?  
[3:52 PM] Leslie: Beats who I have for bio parents.  
[3:52 PM] Susie: Big oof  
[3:57 PM] Caroline: ricky is now officially genghis khan  
[3:58 PM] Zoe: lmfao  
[4:02 PM] Zoe: he's got boy stuff on and is going for a short walk  
[4:10 PM] Richard: My head *really* hurts right now. I can't talk about this until Friday morning. We'll know if it worked by then.  
[4:13 PM] Leslie: Was this about me?  
[4:14 PM] Richard: I absolutely can't talk about it until Friday. I'm sorry. Susie has her Rule 1 and this is mine.  
[4:16 PM] Caroline: leslie it literally could not be about anything else  
[4:20 PM] Susie: Ricky, please come over if you can.  
[4:21 PM] Richard: yeah, sure, don't worry about food, eating burritos  
[4:23 PM] Richard: no dress either, not having fun right now, head's spinning, will start walking after I'm done eating  
[4:23 PM] Zoe: And after he takes a fucking shower.  
[4:25 PM] Susie: You sure Ricky? It sounds like you need some fun right now.  
[4:31 PM] Caroline: smell of brimstone doesn't wash off easily  
[4:40 PM] Richard: you're right, I'll bring one, won't wear it there today, taking the back paths this time  
[4:41 PM] Zoe: Check him for ticks, Susie!  
[4:41 PM] Leslie: *Carefully* check him for ticks *all over*, Susie.  
[4:42 PM] Caroline: lmfao  
[4:42 PM] Zoe: Use your tongue just to be extra safe  
[4:43 PM] Caroline: LMFAO  
[4:43 PM] Susie: He might bring them onto the carpet, and carpet munching is your job.  
[4:43 PM] Leslie: Oh my god :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:  
[4:43 PM] Caroline: brb dying

He took the back paths as he said he would, trying to brush against as little greenery as possible, his mind consumed by worry. He just wished he could tell somebody, anybody, but the thing in the darkness had been very clear that this was all need-to-know and that nobody needed to know. Annoyed, just wishing it would be Friday morning already and he'd know whether or not he'd succeeded, he trudged to his girlfriend's house.

She opened the door even before he knocked. She'd obviously been crying a while ago, to his surprise, and it sort of looked like she still was. She hadn't sounded anything like that on Discord, but he knew how very, very easy it was to fake emotions over text, and he appreciated that she didn't express this in front of the rest of them.

"Take off your clothes right now," she ordered him, a command he was, even in his miserable state, eager to obey, stripping down to his diaper. She actually did look through his clothes for ticks and recoiled slightly as she pinched a small, black insect between her fingers. Oh crap! She'd found an actual tick! She went over to the sink, flushed it all the way down with hot water, and returned to him. He held still as she took the idea much more seriously, searching his clothes and looking up and down his body for anything else he might have picked up.

Then she opened up his backpack and found an unworn, light green dress that went down to his mid-thigh and his pink four-inch heels. "Put them on," she commanded him, "and then bend over my lap." There seemed to be some real anger in her voice, and he obeyed, having a loose understanding as to why.

She pushed up his dress, picked up a hairbrush from the table, and hit him on his butt, right below his diaper. "That's for making me worry about you!" She smacked him again. "And that's for getting all emo and edgy!" She sniffled and sobbed, her voice cracking apart, furiously gripping the hairbrush with tears in her eyes. Wasn't the person getting hit supposed to be the one crying? She spanked him again, harder, growing more upset. "And that's for making me cry!" She hit him again on the other butt cheek, even harder. "And THAT's for making me cry!" She realized that she didn't want to keep spanking him anymore and abruptly threw the hairbrush onto the carpet, making her cat jump, and abruptly bent over with him and sobbed into his shoulder. And he was crying as well, not because of the pain - the harsh, stinging slaps were a welcome relief from what he was worried about - but because of how upset he had made her. "Never do anything like that again!" She realized that those were the wrong words after they were already out. If what he had done was right, she wanted him to do it. What she didn't want was for him or Leslie to be in this position again.

"I hope I never have to!" he shouted, sniffling, his voice cracking as well. "I'm sorry, Your Highness, I'm so sorry, I literally could not do anything else. It's over for now, there's no next step until Friday, and I really hope there's no next step for me at all." He was slightly concerned that she would be annoyed with him at having put so much effort into trying to help a girl other than her. He needn't have worried, as she didn't think along those lines at all and certainly wasn't as selfish as he thought she might be.

She leaned down, petting his hair. "Your princess forgives you. But you are not allowed to be emo or brood ever again. It doesn't matter what you have to do or why you have to do it. If you really have to do something, you can do it, in fact I order you to do it. You are still not allowed to be emo about it. Ever!" She spanked him with her hand, once. "Are we clear?"

"Yes, Your Highness," he said.

"Good boy." She hugged him closely. "Now hold still. I've decided you should have a different hairstyle." She picked up the hairbrush again, but this time she used it for its intended purpose, softly brushing his hair out. Then, she did the right side of his hair up in a standard French braid, then the left side as well, giving him little girlish pigtails that she tied off with pink hairbands. They were snug, but her hands were very soft, and he tried to let himself enjoy the new sensation on his head.

"I heard that bet you made was to do the chores. Did you do a good job?" she asked next to his ear.

"I did, Your Highness." Zoe had clearly never told her just how much he'd done.

"Then I will let you do mine as well. You can do the dishes, mop the kitchen, and vacuum the living room floor. Just the living room, nowhere else."

He got up and curtsied to her. "Thank you for spanking me, for my new hairstyle, and for letting me do your chores, Your Highness," he said, smiling.

"You're very welcome, servant," she said imperiously, trying not to laugh.

Richard allowed himself to relax a bit. He had worried that she was seriously, long-term angry with him. Instead, she'd gone back to enjoyably dominating him instead, and a small part of his tension vanished in relief.

She watched him the whole time, actually moving a comfortable chair to do so and crossing her legs in a queenly fashion, half to make sure that he knew what he was doing (he did) and half because this was much better than any television show or livestream. He was just so wonderfully docile when she wanted him to be, and she loved watching him totter and mince, asking politely for the location of the cleaning supplies.

He did her chores carefully, trying to let the menial work distract his churning mind. It was a buffer, but it wasn't enough. He tried to focus on getting out every last spot and vacuum every last crumb, especially from the extremely expensive rugs, but his mind kept churning anyway. He almost asked her to spank him again, just so the pain could take his mind off what he had done and what needed to happen, but she had specifically ordered him not to be brooding or emo, and he was determined to be a good boy for his princess.

Her dishwasher was substantially faster than his mom's, and it finished long before he was done cleaning the living room under her detailed commands. Once he was done putting the dishes away, he curtsied again. "Did I do a good job?" he asked.

"You did a very good job. And for doing such a good job, you get to play a game with me. Hold still." She'd prepared two pieces of ribbon. The first went around his ankles, and she deftly gave him six inches of slack between them, somehow tying the ends off into two floppy bows. (The fact that she knew so much about knotwork made his heart beat faster.) Then, she tied his arms to his sides just above the elbow, restricting his reach. "Now, all you have to do is catch me, and I'll give you a kiss," she said, smiling widely.

He could have easily gotten out at any time - actually, he was trying to make sure that the the top ribbon wouldn't slip off - but he happily played along, knowing that he'd never win unless she wanted him to. He minced as quickly as he could with his heels and ribbon restricting him, and she simply giggled and walked backwards and around him. He couldn't lunge anywhere with his restricted reach, and his heels made hopping around even slower than his little quick minces, and she spent a quarter hour leading him around the living room as he tried not to bump anything or trip over Whiskers.

Eventually, she walked in front of the couch and embraced him with a deep kiss. "Oh no," she said, giggling, "it looks like you caught me." She pushed him onto the couch easily, then jumped on top of him. "Let's see how your diaper deals with a different kind of mess." He was, of course, absolutely rock hard, and five minutes of teasing and light jerking of his uncut penis had him orgasming in his diaper. She kissed him again, smiling, and helped him sit up next to her, still lightly tied.

She turned on the TV, picked up her Switch, and showed him her Animal Crossing layout. He'd actually never seen it played before and asked questions, and she sat there with him, just an ordinary teenage girl and her loosely tied-up, cross-dressed boyfriend with his hair in pigtails (and, halfway through, a wet diaper; he hadn't peed all day and that was what it was for), drinking tea and playing until it grew late.

"So how would you like to go home?" she asked.

"I don't really want to go as a girl today," he admitted. "Not in these, anyway. Maybe I should have brought lower heels."

She chuckled and untied the ribbons. "You wouldn't want all my hard work braiding your hair to go to waste, would you?"

"No, but I didn't say I'd unbraid it," he sad with a wide smile.

She laughed. "Then let's see how you look."

"Umm, can you change my diaper first?"

"Of course, servant," she said, giving an exaggerated sigh. "Hmph. What kind of princess gives her servant a diaper change?"

"Then maybe it should be the other way around?" he suggested, giggling.

She giggled in return as she pulled the fresh diaper from his backpack. "You're so bad." After he was changed, he put his boy clothes back on, his hair still in the pigtails. She smiled, adoring him. "This suits you so well. I think you should always have your hair like this, every morning after you've washed until you go to sleep at night."

He sighed. "You know I can't."

"You can't now," she corrected him. "Maybe, someday soon, that will change." He desperately hoped that day would be soon.

"You're just so wonderful to me, Your Highness," he said as he walked with her to the door, relieved of most of the emotional stress he'd built up. "I love you. I love you so much."

She kissed him, on the lips, deeply. "I love you too, Ricky." He walked out with a spring in his step, going back the way he came in his boy clothes, his pigtails bouncing with his walk. (He would check himself thoroughly when he got home, after his sister had seen his new hairstyle.)

As he left, it occurred to her that he'd actually addressed one of her misgivings earlier. She had been thinking of what it would be like to spend the rest of her life with him, and she'd worried that a boy who liked to be dominated and dressed up really was useless, a pathetic toy for real, a house-husband at best, rather than someone who would be a man when she needed one. But he'd just shown that he was very capable of significant effort, if nothing else, and if he was willing to go that far in protecting someone he'd just met, what sorts of things would he be willing to do for her if she were in trouble?

Her heart thumped in her chest as she thought of the next time she'd see him.


	5. Who to Trust

Richard had a couple of private messages from Susie waiting for him when he woke up the next morning. Her aunt had lightly scolded her that she had to be careful when wearing her new shoes, as the heels had left some soft indentations in a couple of rugs. That was definitely the sort of behavior that warranted a spanking for Richard, although he'd have to take a rain check on it because it was going to be storming all day and Caroline would be at work. 

Of course, something like that certainly wasn't going to stop him - he was a teenage boy, after all, a mere mile's walk through a thunderstorm was nothing compared to the demands of his dick - but Susie mentioned that the thunderstorm wasn't the only thing that was having a 'heavy flow' that day, and he caught her drift.

He considered whacking off, but decided against it. Susie had taken charge of that, after all, so his orgasms weren't up to him anymore. Instead, he squatted down, messed his diaper like a good boy because that was what it was for (it was still gross, but his mom was coming home so it'd obviously be the last time he'd get to even try it for a while), and walked downstairs, still in his nightie, to where he smelled eggs and burritos.

"You're up early," he said.

"Can't sleep," she replied. She obviously had been worried sick over Leslie. "Hope you like it."

"Yeah, thanks." He sat down and ate with his sister. In a way, it was a normal morning, except for the fact that he was in a poopy diaper and wearing a pink nightgown, in which he felt more normal than he did before. They ate in silence because they didn't know what to say to each other, but it was a comforting sort of silence. At least Mom wasn't home yet. Given how his poop was smearing itself against his butt, he wasted no time in hurrying to the shower, throwing the diaper away (he really didn't want to show THAT to his sister), and washing himself off, his pee running down with the water. After trying them a few times, he decided that used diapers were very much not his thing.

His sister did change him into a fresh one, though, the last one in the house for presumably the last time, and at his request, she started braiding his hair into the pigtails he'd had yesterday. They were so little girlish, so innocent-looking, and just so him. She wondered if Susie would be able to find even more frilly, little-girl dresses in his size. This was the sort of person he really was, the person he'd (wisely) protected behind a shield of social avoidance, and she was glad she could help him be that person.

Of course, he'd tried to help her, too. "Ricky, we're both worried about whatever that thing on Friday is going to be, but I just want you to know that whatever you did for her yesterday, the important part is that you tried."

"No it's not!" he hotly replied. "What matters is if it worked or not! If I only tried, it means I just wasted my time! Just trying isn't gonna lead to her getting better!" Zoe really wanted to ask what he'd done, but she knew she'd find out tomorrow, and he'd obviously said too much as it was. "Sorry, I didn't mean to yell at you."

She smiled at him, shaking her head at the absurdity. "Look at you. I've just put you in a diaper, I'm braiding your hair into pigtails, and the only reason you're getting mad is because you think you might not have helped someone enough. I wish I'd known this about you before." Doing this for him, giving him the compassionate and caring treatment he wanted, felt like making up for lost time.

His reply was simple and honest: "I didn't trust you to know it before." He'd read a definition of trust a while back, written by some professional intelligence something-or-other in the context of computer security, that had made a lasting impression on him, right around the time when he consciously realized he really liked playing game characters who wore dresses. Trust, simply put, was the ability of someone else to hurt you. The more trust you had in someone, the more that person could do to ruin your network, your files, your friendships, your life. A great deal of the various stories he'd read on sites he was too young to visit had featured various females discovering the secrets of males just like him and then completely fucking them over to the point of lifelong dependence and physical mutilation. He knew such stories weren't real, but he was certain that some people had to want to do that; why would they have wrote them otherwise? Trusting anyone with his sissy secret was obviously a very bad idea, and making the bet with Zoe was an impulsive act, a chance taken. If he had thought beforehand, he would never have done it, and he was very, very glad he did.

Zoe was somewhat annoyed with herself that she didn't, couldn't have, trusted him, either. She had been reading stories of her own, but they were all presumably real, of girls being disowned and worse by their parents as soon as they came out of the closet. She had far less interest in expressing herself as she did in being able to live anything like a normal life, and if that meant staying hidden, then so be it. She intended to stay firmly in a very fortified closet until she was financially independent. At least she didn't have to keep her bisexuality hidden from her brother anymore, and if he somehow made this thing with Leslie's evil birth parents go away, she'd never be able to repay him in a thousand years.

"Speaking of, Zoe, you didn't trust me before, but do you want me to actually teach you Starcraft, the way I play it?" He had offered to help when she'd first gotten started and had been harshly rebuffed.

"I'd like that, and there's one more chore you didn't do," she said. "You actually didn't finish the laundry."

"I did all four loads, like you showed me."

"You did all four loads of clothes. You didn't do the sheets and blankets. It's all right, I didn't realize it either."

He went to put on a blue dress with floral accents he hadn't tried on, but the chest area was too baggy, so he put on his fake boobs so it would fit and, after a bit of thought, his butt padding as well. He put on his jingly socks and favorite pink heels and twirled around, watching his dress flare back and forth, smiling at how pretty he looked, not wanting this to end and knowing that it had to, at least while their mother was home.

That was how they spent their morning, brother and sister: him as a cute, pigtailed, high-heeled houseboy, her in shorts and a T-shirt, as he used Archon Mode to show her how he managed building and units in between mincing downstairs to do sheets (on hot) and blankets (on warm). He was honest and genuine with her, both when she messed up and when she did well, and she greatly appreciated that. This week had felt for the first time in her life that she had an actual brother and not just some kid who lived in the same house. Even if he was the sort of brother that obediently and carefully made everyone's bed while trying not to overbalance with his rubber boobs and high heels.

Then they prepared for their mother's arrival by putting a reluctant Richard back in his boy clothes, throwing away his used diaper, and unbraiding his hair, right before they took out all the trash, washed all his girl stuff, and moved it to the back of his closet where their mother never went. No heel-prints in the carpet, no dirty diapers in the house, no evidence anywhere that any of this had ever happened at all.

And then their mother called when she arrived at the airport, and they found themselves waiting in the living room together, watching something they didn't care about on TV. It wasn't really conscious on either of their parts. He was anxious, and she was anxious, and they just kind of hung out together because neither one wanted the other to be alone with their mother at that point.

She finally showed up with a tired expression and suitcases in hand, took one look at them, and mutual misunderstanding struck.

Despite Susie's command not to brood, Richard's mind had been wandering into a dark place as he awaited their mother, and he'd been considering plausible but unlikely scenarios cooked up from some of the worst real-world shit he'd heard about online. His mother was anti-pharma in general so he didn't worry about her trying to put them on some psychotropic drug. But one of his least favorite scenarios, and therefore the one that got the most fixation, was that his mother was going to call up a Focus on the Family "counselor" once she found out who her children really were, or, worse, some "educational consultant" asshole who was going to force one or both of them into nightmarish "residential treatment". If she gave a single hint that she had put any thought into doing anything like that, his very first resort would have been to go straight to the thing in the darkness and give it the full names and home addresses of everyone he knew in his entire extended family, beginning with himself. (Richard strongly suspected that it had a great deal more life-ruining and perhaps physically destructive power than all of 'cancel culture' put together.) Then he was going to find Caroline's PTSD veteran workshop buddies and trick the asshole into an in-person meeting somewhere else, telling him about a troubled teen with the unusual name of Ty Ryron and asking him to please come and receive Ty Ryron immediately.

Of course, Heather had no knowledge that such things even existed and would have never interacted with them if she did. What she did have was a fairly solid grasp of nonverbal communication and a modicum of social awareness. Her children - usually avoidant of one another - were standing unusually close together, both of them looking at her with anxiety and distrust written all over their faces. She didn't understand why. The house was sparkling like new, all surfaces tended to and everything neat and clean; she'd half-expected to need to start yelling at them about doing chores properly or break up some spat that had occurred between them. This situation made no sense to her. They'd done everything right, had grown close somehow, and yet they were looking at her that way? The thought briefly crossed her mind that maybe they'd killed somebody and had spent plenty of time cleaning it up, and she found herself checking the walls and floor for bloodstains. "What happened?" she asked immediately.

"Our disabled friend's biological parents are going to get her killed," Zoe answered. Richard hadn't wanted to tell her anything at all, but Zoe pointed out that she was probably going to figure something was up, so Richard offered the idea of bringing this up instead.

"What?"

They both explained, taking turns, what Leslie's condition was, the hope she had, and how it had been cruelly taken away; what Richard had been doing yesterday went totally unmentioned. Heather understood the situation in broad terms, but the thing that she had found most fascinating was that Richard was actively caring about someone else. The boy had always been aloof and unconcerned, spending a lot of time on his computer, and Heather had found it nearly impossible to get him to show any concern for anyone, even his own family. Since when had he started caring about other people? A suspicion grew in her mind. "Richard, is Leslie your girlfriend?" she asked when he was done explaining, and Zoe took great care in keeping her face unchanged.

"No," he said immediately, as casually as he could, "Susie is." He wanted to pull his mother away from other suspicions.

"Susie, from up the hill?" she asked, her eyes widening. Zoe had told her about her friends, because Heather wasn't going to let her daughter run around with people she didn't know. All she had really known, though, was that Caroline's dad was a mechanic, Leslie had some debilitating condition, and Susie was extraordinarily rich. "She's a couple years older than you. You're not messing with me, are you?"

"Not messing with you, Mom."

"He's really not," Zoe added.

"I certainly hope this works out for you," she said, and her children saw through her greed. The only way any of Susie's money was going to reach Heather's pockets was via winged swine. "By the way, Zoe, your cousins were asking where you were."

Both of her children tensed up and she realized immediately that she had said the wrong thing. She couldn't fathom why. Her daughter had been upset, but that was months ago, so what was the problem?

"Yeah, Mom, did they ask how I was doing, or did they just want to see my body again?"

"Zoe, that's not right. They're your family."

"So they didn't ask how I was doing. They just wanted to see my legs in striped tights so they could pretend to lick me again."

"Zoe!" That had been six months ago! Heather could not understand, at all, why she would bring something like that up again. "I told you then and I'll tell you again, I don't know what you thought you saw, but I'm certain that wasn't it!"

"Weren't you yelling at the television about how we should believe a woman when she says things about this stuff?" Richard asked quietly. He couldn't even remember which woman it was. Was it Tara Whatsherface or Christine Blaggowhocares? Conventional, mainstream politics were a mystery to him. He was thirteen and had other things on his mind.

"That's different," Heather said, keeping a patient tone. This was not the conversation she'd expected to have when she got home.

"No it's not," Zoe said. "You forced me to wear disgusting dresses in front of disgusting literal incest cousins. Twice." Zoe inwardly grinned a bit, imagining what her mother would say if she knew who had been wearing them instead.

"Zoe, I didn't intend for you to be disgusted by them. I thought that if you wore things like that enough, that you'd come to accept it and like it."

She knew, immediately, that this was an even bigger mistake. She had entirely rubbed both of them the very wrong way - no, that was an understatement.

Her daughter was staring at her with betrayal and no small amount of hatred in her eyes, the same way she had looked after that terrible Christmas (she wished she still had the pictures, as she figured that, later in life, her daughter might appreciate what she was trying to do for her) and even after her son's rather dismal birthday. She had actually been quietly grateful when he'd given her a reason to stop trying to make her daughter more feminine. Those looks, along with her lingering avoidant and distrustful attitude, even after it was all over and she figured Zoe had no reason to be angry with her anymore, had stayed with her. Was she really going to turn Zoe into a lesbian doing this, as her son had explained? Why couldn't her daughter just accept that she was a girl?

But that was a picnic compared to the look of sheer contempt that her son was giving her. His body language told her that he was willing to do absolutely awful, unforgettable things to her, perhaps violent and perhaps not, at the drop of a hat. Richard never acted like this, especially not towards her. She had seen this look directed at her only once before in her entire life.

Heather wasn't quite the queen bee of high school, but she was up there, and she considered the nerdy Jessica to be lucky to have her as a friend. She couldn't remember all that her and her friends did - occasionally stole her homework, called her names, got her to participate in harassment of other students, generally things that Heather considered to be harmless kid stuff. And then they had been arguing by her locker, something about how Jessica didn't want to do something or other, asking if she really wanted to be their friend, and then Heather had taken a small pair of scissors, reached under the collar of Jessica's shirt, and snipped her bra strap just to remind her who was in charge. A fun little prank, really.

And then Jessica had given her that look, the look that said she had gone too far, then made a beeline straight for the principal's office and told the principal absolutely everything, including, in incredibly self-incriminating detail, her own role when the group had targeted someone else. They all knew that this much tattling would basically end her social life at that school, but Jessica hadn't cared one whit. She was more interested in hurting them than protecting herself, and it had, of course, worked for its intended purpose. Heather had nearly been expelled right there, but the principal was clear that she was being merciful by giving her two weeks of suspension instead. Heather's parents had been absolutely livid with her and she spent the rest of her senior year grounded, subjected to humiliating therapy sessions in which she was accused of sexual bullying, and forced to write an apology letter of which she didn't actually mean a word and that she was sure Jessica didn't even read. One of her other friends had been so pissed off that she'd concocted a convoluted, probably unworkable plan to get back at Jessica at prom, but it hadn't mattered because Jessica simply didn't go to prom. They simply never saw her again outside of classes, where they were strictly forbidden from talking to her, on pain of expulsion, and Jessica didn't show up to graduation, either.

Heather's friends had gone off to college while she had gotten married and pregnant by the jock she'd had a crush on, and then he had gotten hurt playing college football in a low-division league, and once the prescription for oxycodone had run out, he'd turned to heroin. The only thing left of him was two children, one of which didn't even want to look at her and the other of which was silently staring at her with the exact same expression that Jessica had, back then.

She'd never told her children about what had happened in her senior year. Originally, the reason had been because she didn't want them doing things like that to anyone; now, it was that she expected a reaction of 'We figured you were always like that.' She felt agonized and frustrated that her daughter couldn't or wouldn't receive her good intentions in the spirit they were given. Why couldn't Zoe just accept that her mother she was just trying to teach a fun lesson in femininity?

Although Zoe didn't say anything out loud, Heather could read her lips: 'Fuck you, Mom.' She turned around and walked upstairs to her room.

Normally, Heather might have said or done something just then, some threat of punishment or admonishment, but her intuition was absolutely screaming at her that if she said anything like that, her son was going to do something so unimaginably hurtful that their family life, at the very least, would never be the same. It did not miss her perception that her son, who had apparently just learned to care about people, had it in his mind that he needed to protect his sister from their own mother.

"I was only trying to help," she protested.

"You failed," Zoe replied simply, not even turning around. Heather breathed an audible sigh of relief when her son started going up to his room as well. She decided to let it go for now. Despite the hurt being flung back and forth, they hadn't actually done anything, and so she wasn't going to do anything. Richard, too, was relieved that his mother was not going to do anything and so he didn't have to do anything.

Something had changed, and Heather didn't know what it was. It had to be about their disabled friend, of course. That was the only explanation that made sense.

She was still their mother, of course. They hadn't had dinner, and now that she was home, that was up to her. She put away her suitcases - noting that every single surface had been expertly dusted, sheets and blanket washed, bed made perfectly - changed clothes and took a bath (the toilet was spotless), and went back downstairs to the kitchen. Every surface washed, spic and span. "What on Earth happened?" she asked aloud to no one, in total confusion. She fished a couple of cans of Spam out of the cupboard - she cooked it with canned vegetables in a way that her children found somewhat palatable - and called them down for dinner, only after noticing something very weird. The looks on her children's faces had only somewhat changed, but they sat at the table to eat anyway.

"May I ask why there are baby wipes and powder on the counter?" she asked, eyebrow raised, certain that she had caught them in something. If the two of them were quietly making money babysitting other people's children while she was out, that would explain at least some of their behavior.

"Mom, were you not even listening when we told you about our friend?" Zoe snapped, and Heather stared in confusion.

"Leslie, the one with the serious disability," Richard reminded her as if she were very, very stupid.

"Oh! Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize that you were doing that for her here. Why aren't they in the bathroom?"

"Because she can't do stairs, Mom," Zoe said. "Even our doorstep is hard for her." Heather realized that she was only giving her children more reasons to think of her as a gigantic bitch, and they ate in mostly silence. Maybe she'd bring this all up with them later, but it obviously wasn't the time. Heather tried to lighten the mood by talking about the wedding, not mentioning the cousins Zoe hated, but they obviously didn't care and it just bounced off. They ate in a very uncomfortable silence, after which both of them went right back to their rooms. There wasn't really peace in the house, but at least it was only a cold war.

Heather couldn't help but feel that she had lost something very important and had no idea how to get it back.


	6. Evil Overlord List: #29

Richard woke up his computer seconds after he woke up himself. He fired up Jailtracker for his local area, fully expecting not to find anything, and there was Leslie's biological mother's name. His jaw opened a bit, and his breathing grew rapid. He clicked it and blinked, staring at the screen, looking at the magic words appear before him: POSS W/ INTENT DISTRIB HEROIN. Richard knew, from personal experience, that you stop getting a say in your children's lives when you get busted for things like POSS W/ INTENT DISTRIB HEROIN.

"It actually worked," he whispered. He looked down, and then up again, in disbelief. He had actually pulled it off. Relief, euphoria, and elation washed through him, along with a strange sense of dissociation, not quite the same as he'd felt when he first started doing this. Dazed, halfway in a dream, he posted the Jailtracker link in the Discord chat and told them how to sort by new, not expecting anyone to be awake.

[6:10 AM] Leslie: This is what you were working on? :astonished:  
[6:12 AM] Leslie: How the f u c k did you do it?! :open_mouth:  
[6:12 AM] Richard: Dark sorcery, how else?  
[6:13 AM] Leslie: Funny but I'm not kidding. I have to show my parents this. BRB

Richard winced, but he understood. If the worst thing that came out of this was that he'd have to face the music, it would surely be better than the funeral dirge Leslie would have faced without it.

[6:15 AM] Caroline: HOW THE FUCK DID YOU FRAME HER BIO PARENTS FOR DRUGS

Parents, plural? Oh, the other one had just appeared as well, along with someone else, probably the mule. Similar list of charges, beginning with the magic words CONSPIRACY DISTRIB HEROIN. (He noted that the police had probably gotten the charges of husband and wife flipped but didn't care.)

[6:17 AM] Richard: LOL I didn't frame them. Don't think you can get busted for POSS W/ INTENT DISTRIB without actually having drugs. I didn't plant or give them anything either lol  
[6:18 AM] Caroline: ok then how the fuck did you catch them  
[6:20 AM] Richard: I **really** don't want to explain that here!

Zoe needed to know, so he threw on his boxer shorts and tapped on her door quietly as their mother was still asleep. Receiving no reply, he decided to call her on the phone instead.

She opened the door half a minute later, wearing pajamas, her hair a mess, her phone in her hand. She'd known why he'd called her but couldn't believe it. "Ricky, is this a prank?"

"I can't prank Jailtracker," he quietly pointed out. "This is real, Zoe. It's over." He was very, very glad it was over. His next steps would have gotten him even more involved than he already was. Bereft of words, she hugged him, still holding on to her phone.

[6:23 AM] Leslie: This is Leslie's mother. Richard, Leslie's father and I would like to speak with you privately, in person. Can you get your mother to drive you here before we have to be at work at 9?  
[6:24 AM] Richard: Ok.

Getting their mother out of bed took less effort than Richard had expected and more effort than Zoe had. They'd needed to show her the specific line in the chat room before she was convinced that this is a thing she actually needed to do, asking her if she wanted to call Leslie's parents on the phone, even after they'd promised her the answers she so sorely wanted. She wondered if she'd get the answer she really wanted: why and how had her children changed so much?

The chat had moved forward:

[6:26 AM] Caroline: sorry maam but were all invovled. we cant let him do this alone. just called susie  
[6:28 AM] Leslie: Mom here. I understand.  
[6:31 AM] Susie: She's picking me up. Will be there in 45 minutes or so.  
[6:31 AM] Susie: HOLY SHIT btw.  
[6:32 AM] Zoe: We're coming. Also what Susie said!

They were in the fairly old car within half an hour, mostly forgoing morning rituals except for excretions and tooth brushing, as Richard decided to transfer some screenshots to his phone, Zoe stared at her brother with a mixture of shock and outright awe, and Heather thought of the last time her children had woken her up so early. Christmas? No, certainly not last Christmas, and not the one before. Richard wondered if Caroline should have picked them up instead, but Leslie's father had specifically requested for Heather to be there, and Richard figured that maybe explaining what he'd done in front of her would give his mother a much-needed hint.

They arrived at a fortituous time, Heather arriving just as Caroline and Susie were walking in, and the full group met in the living room together. Leslie hadn't been kidding; the house really was full of assistive devices, some of which Richard and Zoe had never seen before. Leslie sat on a very comfortable-looking chair, her parents on the couch, Heather on another chair and the teens on the floor. They introduced themselves quickly, and Richard took note of Leslie's parents; they looked nothing like her. Willa had a harsh, lined face bereft of makeup, and her husband, Robert, looked almost like a version of Richard that had grown up, only with a neatly trimmed beard and glasses. He looks like Gordon Freeman, Richard realized, and would have laughed if he thought anyone else there would have had any idea what he was talking about.

Unlike the Half-Life protagonist, though, Robert had a voice, a deep, educated one that sounded like a guidance counselor. "If anything, and I mean anything, we say in here leaves this room, it's going to get very ugly for everyone in here. Especially Leslie. Do we all understand this?" The one person that Richard and Zoe worried about not understanding that was their mother, but Heather had worked a union job for longer than her children had been alive and was very, very good at knowing when to keep her mouth shut. "Richard, I want you to explain, step by step, what you did, and I don't want anyone interrupting or distracting him." He spoke with serious authority, Richard noted, like a principal or warden. It was a skill the man had spent time cultivating.

There were things that Richard had decided to leave out. The first was who, or rather what, had taught him to do this. The thing on his friends list had told him exactly what investigative procedure to use: search everything you can find, then use that to look into more things to find, and never stop doing that, not even when you think you've found something good. Think of what they would least like to be discovered about themselves, and then discover that. Dig into every rabbit hole. Analyze every piece of information. Consider the future state of things every step of the way. (Richard, a veteran Starcraft 2 player, did not need to be told that one.) Do not give up until you can no longer physically continue.

Richard would also not mention his missteps and false leads. He had made a hell of a lot of mistakes and crawled down a lot of blind alleys, including spending two hours tracking down an account that turned out to be owned by somebody else. If he had really known what he was doing, he figured, he would have had it done in maybe an hour and a half and probably would have felt a hell of a lot less emotion in the process. As it was, he'd actually spent an hour in total looking general information up simply because he was thirteen years old and had no idea what certain things meant.

He also had no intention of discussing what he had felt while he was doing it. It wasn't relevant, it sounded really stupid when he said it out loud, and his princess had specifically ordered him not to be emo.

The final thing he would not mention, not even to himself, was that he hadn't entirely done it for Leslie. He'd done it because he saw monsters, and monsters needed to be destroyed.

He took a breath. "Okay, I was actually just originally going to look up things to show your lawyer for the hearing. So, the first thing I did was I looked on their Facebook stuff, and on some of their older posts, they'd shown a bunch of screenshots." He showed Leslie's parents his screenshots as he talked. "One of them had her bio dad's computer username, and that username was also his Reddit account, which had posted a bunch of drug related stuff a few years ago. But I really wanted to look at his private messages, and his password was the third one I tried: p, 4, s, s, w, 0, r, d." Heather looked like she wanted to interrupt but kept quiet. "On there, he was talking to this one guy who said that he used a forum all about drugs. I found his account on there, and you're not even gonna believe what his password was. It was leslie, no caps." That was about the tenth one he'd tried, and he was utterly shocked and disgusted when it had actually worked. "I get on there, and he's talking to somebody else about a drug market on TOR, the dark web. I found his account on that site, same password, and he'd actually set up regular transactions with their escrow people. That's why we had to wait until Friday, because the next one was scheduled to be picked up at the Mission parking lot at 4 AM this morning. I called the cops and told them I overheard a couple of guys talking about transferring drugs there. As soon as I said Mission I knew they believed me." The 'Mission' had failed miserably; it referred to the name of an entirely local, heavily understaffed, and notoriously mismanaged homeless shelter, halfway house, and home of a wide variety of registered sex offenders.

"You said you overheard it," Robert said.

"What else was I going to tell them?!" Richard replied.

"You could have used some crimestopper tipline, but don't worry about it. They probably knew you were lying about how you got the info, but big secret, they don't care around here as long as the info's good." Richard nodded, having thought the same thing. "Did you give them your name?"

"I did, just to make sure they'd actually send someone, but I asked them to keep me anonymous."

"All right, it probably won't be a problem. At least I don't think so. Willa?"

"If we all keep our mouths shut about this, yes," she replied in exactly the voice Richard and Zoe had expected. "Even if they were told that someone overheard, if they admit to using a computer network to traffic drugs, they could be facing federal instead of state charges. They're going to just plead guilty, 99 times out of 100."

"I wish I understood more about computers," Heather lamented. Not for the first time, she could simply not entirely comprehend what her son was talking about.

"Here's the short version: Your boy's a freaking Jedi," Caroline said, sharing a knowing look with the rest of the teens. What Richard had done in his room that day had not involved the light side of the Force.

"The other short version is that we owe him a lot," Robert said. "You don't understand what he did for us. When you have a biological parent opposing an experimental therapy, it is almost impossible to get a judge to not issue a stay on something like that. They could have dragged this out for months and months." Caroline just nodded as the looks went her way; she'd called it. "What she has and how she has it, it's a progressive disease. I don't even know if this therapy is going to work, but I do know she'd just get worse without it."

Heather shook her head. "I don't understand that either. If this is supposed to save her life, why would her parents oppose it?"

Willa chuckled without humor. "That's basically asking us why we have jobs."

Heather shook her head again. "I just couldn't imagine a parent doing something so hurtful." There was more chuckling in the room, and she had a vague idea as to why.

Robert held up a hand. "Anyway, I need to be clear about something. All of what we just talked about would be true if Richard had been the one who did this. Instead, what happened was, I told you to give that story to the police, and I was the one who did all of this." A moment while that sunk in. Willa drew in a breath. "Phone," he told Richard in a clinical tone, one professional to another, and Richard immediately gave it to him. Robert was absolutely embarrassed at himself and decided that, if he could do nothing else, he could at least do this, even though nothing was likely to come of it. He could have done everything Richard had done, and probably done some of it better, if he'd really tried.

"You're tanking for him," Heather realized. She had played World of Warcraft while Zoe and Richard were babies.

"Don't know what that means," Robert replied.

"She means you're eating the damage," Zoe answered.

"That I am. Honestly, I concur with Willa in that I don't actually expect anything to happen over this, this was a minor giving a tip for a future event and they got caught red handed, but I'm not going to let there be even a chance of a thirteen-year-old going down over saving my daughter's life and putting away a couple of scumbags in the process. There, now the screenshots of everything I did are on my computer, and your phone has nothing related," he said, handing it back to him. "Make sure nothing at home does. Did you save to a cloud service at all?"

Richard raised an eyebrow at him. The guy had shown him professional courtesy and then he asked him that? "Hell no."

"Good, well, we almost certainly won't ever hear about any of this again. And Heather, there's something else Willa and I should probably talk to you about. It's unrelated. In private, please." They led her past a couple of assistive devices into their bedroom and closed the door.

"What do you think that's about?" Susie asked, worried.

"Probably about the dresses," Leslie said.

Richard's eyes bugged out. "What?!" he blurted out quietly.

Caroline laughed. "She didn't mean your dresses, they don't know about that, at least I hope they don't." Leslie looked away for a bit, but no one noticed. "She meant that shit that your mom pulled on you, Zoe. Leslie's parents are not gonna let that slide while they've got her in here. Now c'mon, we have messages to delete. Pretty sure deleted actually means deleted here." Many of the previous conversations they'd had were unhappened in minutes.

"Also... they're not going to tell her..." Leslie's lip curled up a bit. "...but I told them everything. Everything. They're my parents, it's different between me and them than for any of you." Susie inhaled a bit. Caroline whistled faintly. "Dealing with abused kids is literally their full-time job." It was how they'd met, and they'd decided to adopt a child in need of serious help themselves shortly after they'd married. That child happened to be an, at the time, eleven-year-old girl with truly abominable parents and a serious progressive disease. "Ricky, they don't care about that stuff as long as it's up to you. Even before this." It was a breach of trust, but it was forgivable. Given what was going on in the other room - Richard overheard Willa nearly losing her temper with "can last for decades" - he was sure that they were on his and Zoe's side.

Zoe looked at Leslie. "About us?" Not for the first time, Richard had to remind himself that the preteen-looking Leslie was actually older than his sister.

"They said it's fine, that it's even good for me, as long as it's an equal relationship." She looked down at her broken body, as if to suggest that she could never have one while she was like that.

"Leslie, if they start talking to my dad..." Susie winced and moved her hands back and forth in a highly negative gesture. Ricky also winced a bit; after all this, there weren't many things that could scare him anymore, but despite his abilities, he had a pretty solid idea that Susie's dad was not a man with whom he wanted to fuck.

"They won't. Trust me, they won't. They have to worry about stuff like this all the time. That's why it was safe to tell them." Robert and Willa could not even count the number of times that a child had admitted something personal to his or her parents and received extremely vicious abuse in return.

The adults left the bedroom then, and it was immediately evident that Heather had been crying. Zoe and Richard both knew what that meant, and Richard gave a small sigh of relief, thinking of all the things that he wouldn't have to do, at least not then, including calling his Sith master to go full Palpatine on his own family. None of the teens had any idea what Leslie's parents had said to her nor exactly how they'd said it, but whatever it was, it had worked.

Heather offered a very awkward and too-long apology that involved her tripping over her words and repeating herself more than once, saying that she was sorry for not believing her daughter, putting her into dresses she hated, and not seeing the signs that Zoe's cousins were giving off, and that whoever Zoe chose to be, Heather had to, as her mother, accept that choice. Richard had expected her to apologize when they got into the car; for her to do it right then meant that she was completely defeated. Zoe was still not willing to tell her mother the full truth, and Richard never even considered it.

Zoe's reply was very simple: "If you never do anything like that again, for any reason, we can forget about this." It was a lie, of course; she would not forget about it for a very long time, if ever (as Robert and Willa had just been explaining), but the alternative to pretending was to live in simmering antagonism with her mother until she moved out. Heather readily agreed.

Robert offered to buy breakfast at a local diner for all of them, an offer that was immediately accepted. Treating Richard, his family, and his friends to a nice breakfast was the very least he could have done. Repay him? How? With what? He didn't even know how to thank him.

Richard and Zoe rode with their mother, who was obviously deep in thought. Heather knew the WoW analogy wasn't quite right but kept drifting back to it: Her children had become higher level than she was. She was in the mid-levels, hunting monsters and gathering herbs, and apparently her children had been powerleveling while she was gone, and now her son had joined the same guild as his sister and friends, kitting himself out with endgame loot after having defeated a raid boss. She thanked her intuition for telling her what she needed to hear yesterday -- her son had just singlehandedly sent two people to jail with nothing but his computer and his determination, and she'd almost been insane enough to seriously piss him off!

Both Robert and Willa had been very clear with her: As their mother, it was her duty to keep them safe and help them grow, and whoever or whatever they were was not something that she could force into one identity or another. She took this advice very much to heart. She did, however, allow herself one point of pride: if her son could do that, it meant that she had, in some way, succeeded in parenting him.

The diner had recently reopened, and obviously the same people were working there; the staff recognized Leslie's family on sight and immediately found a table that would accomodate all eight of them, including Leslie's wheelchair.

As before, Richard's friends simply didn't treat him any differently than they had the last time they'd eaten together. It never crossed their minds that they should. Richard developed a new metric for judging people: 'How much would this person treat me differently if I were in a dress?' In fact, they were all regularly stealing looks at him - even the adults were doing that, and for reasons that had nothing to do with how sweet he liked to look. He understood, very thoroughly, that some statuses were more critical than others, that real life really did resemble many of his games. In the greater scheme of things, his pretty dresses were almost entirely cosmetics; his stats were what counted, and apparently those were enough to complete a very critical quest. He was not merely Richard, the boy who liked to look cute and girly; he was Richard, the Sith apprentice who liked to look cute and girly.

"Hey, Ricky, there's somewhere I want to take you today," Susie told him. She'd been using her phone at the table, and he'd caught a glimpse of a map.

"Yeah, Mom, I think we're going to spend the day with them," Zoe added.

"Go on ahead," Heather replied. What else was she going to say? She'd taken off Friday so that she could spend time with her children, get them to see things her way, but that had been pulverized before it even started.

Robert tipped well, and no one but Richard noticed when Susie slipped a twenty under her plate for the waitress to pick up. Caroline chuckled as they got in the car together, shaking her head. "Your mom. From hyena to pussycat. I bet she thought you were going to do her next." She had meant it as a joke and was surprised to get general agreement.

"She thought I was going to do her next yesterday, and she didn't even know what it was," Richard said, and abruptly decided that the best definition of it was 'do dirty'. "She'd said some real ugly shit." Did the woman not get that forcing people into dresses just wasn't something you did, especially to your own children? Was this hard somehow? He didn't want to do his own mother dirty, didn't even really want to intimidate her, and really, really hoped that what she'd learned today in addition to Leslie's parents telling her off would put a stop to stupid parent tricks forever, even if she found out things the Squad didn't want her to know.

"No, we're not talking about this now," Zoe said. It was killing the mood. "We can talk about where we're going."

"No we can't," Susie replied. "It'll be a pleasant surprise for at least one of us. Assuming it's open."

"We can talk about what Ricky did," Leslie offered. She understood, mechanically, what had happened. She did not understand why Richard had delved deep into all-consuming hatred and monomaniacal fixation to do it. Wasn't it her problem? She'd only known him for a few days! She knew that this was the kind of 'low self-esteem' thing that her parents talked to her about fairly often, but she had a difficult time understanding that people cared about her. Was he the same sort of rarity as the rest of her friends and her parents? She had to remind herself that her parents were telling the truth, that this was just the sort of thing real friends did for each other.

"Heroic," Susie said, simply. "Is there a better word?" She intended to reward him for it, reward him in a way that the both of them would very much enjoy. Today's trip was something she was probably going to do anyway, but she had even more exciting plans in mind for later.

"Isn't that what's supposed to happen with a princess around?" Richard joked. The girls giggled and he realized his mistake: he'd never called her that before in front of the rest of them. Susie didn't seem to mind, though, as she was giggling as well, although she added yet another item to her to-do list for when they were alone.

"It was the best timing, but not the worst revenge I ever heard of," Caroline said, looking behind her as she merged onto the highway to downtown. Traffic was much lighter than it was before everyone who could had started working from home. "I heard this like five years ago, it's a rumor, but I think it actually happened. There were these mean girls, and this nerd, and she didn't have any other friends so she kept hanging out with them even when they made her help bully other people, and then she was arguing over something, and one of the mean girls cut her bra strap in school, and then she waited for years and then... it was her boyfriend, husband, I forget, but she hooked him up with a drug dealer, something really addictive, meth or coke or something. Totally fucked them."

Leslie whistled. Susie's lips pursed. "Ouch," Zoe said.

"That is hardcore," Richard added. He felt a great deal of respect for whoever pulled that off and wanted to meet to swap notes.

"Hey, Ricky, lean your seat back," Susie said, and he found the lever that would let him do that, putting his head near his girlfriend's lap.

"Not entirely safe, what are you doing?" Caroline asked.

"Braiding his hair," Susie replied. "Don't worry, it'll be okay for where we're going." Caroline's car had good suspension, and he smiled as she put his hair back into its familiar, comfortable pigtails. She kissed him on the forehead when she was done, and he sat back up happily, not caring one whit if anyone saw him. They chatted the rest of the way, about Leslie's treatment (which Leslie had to remind herself was actually, for-sure, going to happen now), about everything else they'd been doing, about the food they'd eaten. The agreement was that the bacon and eggs had been good; the milkshakes had been excellent.

They arrived at their destination, a place close to the upscale part of the downtown area, and Caroline had to check her phone to make sure that it was the right place, frowning. "This is the address," she said, unconvinced. It wasn't a bad neighborhood, but weren't they going to a boutique? Where was the glass storefront, the displayed clothes? Why would a 'boutique' be a plain brick building with a single, forbidding-looking door? Okay, it did say "Spectral Boutique" on the small glass window, in rainbow cursive, but other than that, it looked almost like a crime den. She decided to go in first, and as they entered, Leslie walking, the group was startled by the sheer colorful flamboyance of two things.

The first was the proprietor. He had the certain look of the guy who owns the place, and he also had a massively overdone, glittery, pastel rainbow concoction of a suit festooned with an abundance of buttons and pins, a Mad Hatter-style top hat, and sparkling rimmed glasses with no lenses. Not his fashion choices but his overall demeanor marked him as unquestionably, undeniably gay, leaving them all to wonder how much was of it was an act. Susie, who knew more about these things than a fifteen-year-old probably should, strongly suspected that the man had additional items on underneath.

The second was everything else in the store. If the store had a theme, it was 'rainbows', with 'pastels' and 'fishnets' vying for second place. There was a section in the back labeled "Must Be 18 To Enter", which Susie found relieving because she'd worried that maybe the whole store was like that.

"Okay, I'm seeing four girls, three underage, and one underage boy in pigtails," the proprietor said in exactly the sort of super-gay, lisping voice they were envisioning. (Caroline smirked but did not correct him.) "Before we even start, I have to ask, are you coercing, punishing, blackmailing, or threatening him in any way to be here?"

All five of them burst out in spasms of uncontrollable laughter, Leslie needing to hold on to Zoe for support. "Coerce HIM?!" Caroline exclaimed, pointing. "Oh my God, he'd kill us all, there would be a giant smoking crater. You have no idea, we can't even tell you what he's capable of. Why would you even ask that?!"

The man's voice became several notches less campy. "Three months after I opened, there was a boy, middle school age or so, and his face had been made up really garish, and his hair in super tight curlers, and he had so obviously been crying heavily. And his mother, could have been his aunt, and two sisters, cousins, whatever, were telling me to pull down the most ridiculous sissy stuff I have in the store to punish him with, and he's just standing there sobbing. Not sure if you noticed, but I have some pretty ridiculous stuff in here." Richard held his tongue; it would be mean to point out that the most ridiculous thing in the store was its owner.

"What happened?" Leslie asked.

The man raised an eyebrow. "What do you think happened? I told them to get the hell out of my store before I called Child Protective Services! And then I followed them out to their car, got their license plate, and called CPS on them anyway before they did something else to him. Never found out what happened after that, but from the conversation I had, it wouldn't surprise me if the kid got put in a home somewhere and the adult got sent to county for child abuse. To hell with assholes like that, our community doesn't need more crap coming down on it and I sure as hell don't. Anyway, that was a couple years ago." Richard considered asking for more details, just so he could make sure that family was well and truly destroyed, but there was no way this guy remembered what he'd need to know. The man turned the camp back on. "Welcome to the Spectral Boutique, my name is Franklin, what can I get you?"

"I actually want to see your ridiculous stuff, just to see what it looks like," Susie said, and he pointed to the wall behind her. She turned and looked, as did the others. A long line of extremely, comically frilly, mostly babyish, and nearly all pink dresses hung on that wall, answering the question of why there were no windows. If anyone could just look through and see this stuff, somebody would target the place for sure. A lot of it had price tags that made even her suck air between her teeth, which wasn't surprising for things that shouldn't have existed outside a drawing or cartoon. Each one of them must have come in multiple layers; how else would you wash a thing like that? All of the teens were awed at seeing something like that in person. It was like something from a movie. "Wow. Holy... wow. That's not what we're here for, though. What we're looking for is that rainbow dress you've got, the one that goes from red to violet."

"Yes! The Spectral Dress. Our flagship product, this is for him, right?" She nodded. "Okay, his size is right here," he said with the authority of someone very experienced at telling sizes at a glance. The dress he pulled out made a very smooth transition through all the colors of the rainbow, from red at the collar to a deep violet at the hem, which was slightly elastic in nature and retained a circular shape on its own. "Pockets are here and here, and the hoop part down here actually comes out, makes it easier to wash," he explained.

"Nice!" Richard exclaimed, smiling from ear to ear.

"If you're going to get it, I recommend the Spectral Gloves, at least one pair of Spectral Boots, and Spectral Socks. We've got them all in your size." The Spectral Gloves were soft, satiny, elbow-length opera gloves that didn't go through the full spectrum; instead, they matched the colors on the dress where his hands would be at his sides. The Spectral Boots were knee-length suede, going from violet to red, and coming in three heel heights: flats, two and a half-inch wedges, and five-inch wedges that he was both nervous about and thrilled to try. The socks were exactly the same length and color as the boots. "Buy the whole set and I'll throw in the Spectral Pants, the Spectral Shirt," These items were normal for boys except that they followed the same color pattern as the dress. "and a set of Spectral Hairbands." He held up a ten-pack of elastic hairbands that looped around the RGB color spectrum.

"Ricky?" Susie asked, and he eagerly agreed. "We're buying all of this. Do you have a fitting room so he can wear some of it home?"

"We certainly do, it's right over there." The two of them held hands into the fitting room, Susie selecting the dress, gloves, and medium heels for him, and she pulled out a makeup kit and a spare, folded diaper from her purse. Less than five minutes later, the two of them emerged, with Richard wearing his new Spectral outfit, his new rainbow hairbands holding his pigtails, subtly cute makeup, and a gigantic smile, his ordinary clothes in his arms.

"You're pretty good on heels," Franklin noted with a smile. Richard was exactly the sort of kid he'd envisioned wearing that outfit when he'd made it. Most of his customers were adult men, with adult females in second place followed by curious teenage girls, but it was definitely an outfit for boys like him.

"I've been practicing," Richard admitted. "I kinda always want to wear them, unless I'm doing something physical where I really shouldn't."

"Just make sure you lift your toes and stretch your calves regularly," Franklin advised. "The shortened tendons thing can happen for real, especially since you're still growing. All right, you got the whole set, and there's tax, you know, let's just call it two-thirty even." Caroline whistled faintly, but Susie plopped down a dozen twenties like it was nothing and received a picture of Alexander Hamilton in return.

"By the way," Susie said, "since you know a lot about this stuff, can you confirm a rumor for me? I heard that some babysitter tried to put somebody's ten-year-old kid into some bondage dress thing and his twin sister almost blew her head off for it."

Franklin sucked in a long breath and dialed the camp down to zero. "You know, that actually might explain something. There's kind of a fetish, swinger group around here, the Greater Area Sissies," Susie abruptly recognized the acronym. "and they had a maaaajor falling out. I heard from one sissy who came in here, like half their members left, some won't even talk to each other anymore. I asked, but she just flat refused to say why. I might not ever know for sure, and that rumor sounds like bullcrap, but if it's true, it would explain a lot. By the way, can you not spread this? If this is true and gets confirmed to the general public, the feces is going to hit the rotary oscillator so hard it'll get on both me and him," he said, gesturing to Richard, and the group nodded in understanding.

"Keep the change," Susie told him, pushing the Hamilton back towards him. "Knowing that was worth it."

The campy voice returned. "Well, thank you very much, and please come back in the fall for our warmer stuff. You kids have a good day!"

"You too!" Richard replied, giving him a deep curtsey in his new rainbow dress before happily swishing out the door.

As they left, they heard him muttering to himself, "Eris, a freaking ten year old, like we don't have enough problems with the Munchausen's..."

"So, where to now?" Caroline asked.

"There's a local mall I've never been to," Susie said.

"With him like that?" Leslie asked, eyes wide open. Caroline had her eyes wide open as well.

Zoe giggled, remembering what Richard had told her after he'd skipped home Monday. "He's too obviously bait. Especially in a mall, who's gonna harass a 13 year old and all his friends in the middle of a mall, especially when everyone else is staring at him too? Maybe the mall cops?"

"Not around here," Susie said. "I checked, the whole reason Franklin put his store here is because this whole neighborhood is as gay as him. Well, uhh... mmmmaybe not quite that gay." They all laughed. "Unless Ricky's getting cold feet?"

"Pfffffft," Richard blew out, rolling his eyes. His accomplishment and his beautiful outfit made him feel like a transcendent being. He was where he belonged, wearing what he belonged in, and with whom he belonged. Physical danger was basically zilch in a fairly upscale neighborhood with security cameras and mall cops while they walked around in a group of five, and he would gleefully, mercilessly, and irrevocably do anyone who tried to mess with any of them very, very dirty.

"You got it, Princess," Caroline said, putting the car into reverse and pulling out of the parking lot. 

The mall was large and fairly well taken care of, but there were still puddles from where it had rained yesterday, and Richard jumped over a small one in his heels. As soon as they walked in the door, they wondered if the place had even opened properly, but on looking through the shutters, they realized that more than half the stores had been shut down for a long time; malls had been dying for years even before the pandemic. Susie had wanted her boyfriend to strut in dress and heels through a crowded mall, not a graveyard, but at least they were out together, and she abruptly held him around the side of his waist, pressing up against his elastic hoop skirt, the side of her breast pressing against his chest. He held her close with his silky glove, smiling, her head against his shoulder as they walked.

They checked the directory, but it hadn't been updated in years, and Susie wanted to at least walk through with her friends anyway even if the place was mostly shut down.

"Check it," Caroline warned. A middle-aged guy with long hair and a stubbly beard was coming straight up to them only a few minutes after they'd entered, holding up a hand in peace.

"Where'd you buy that rainbow stuff at?" he asked immediately, clearly not wanting to be seen as a creep.

"Spectral Boutique," Susie answered, remembering the name first because she'd known about the place.

"Thank you!" the man replied, searching on his phone while leaving. Another nearby lady started tapping on her phone as well. They realized that they'd gotten Franklin a customer or two. It hadn't occurred to Richard, or any of them, that things like that could happen - that he'd be approached not by people wanting to harass him or ask where his parents were or call him gay but by people who were simply curious or envious. He wondered if the man would walk out wearing the Spectral outfit or one of the super-frilly ones.

"So, Zoe, do you want to wear an actually good dress on your birthday?" Susie asked, to her surprise. With everything that had been happening, it was easy to forget that Zoe's birthday was tomorrow, but none of them had.

"I've been thinking about that," Zoe said. "About what I actually want to look like. I wouldn't mind a real dress, but I don't want some humiliating, childish crap, I want to look like a queen."

"You asked the right person," Leslie pointed out, and they all giggled.

"Right up there," Susie said, pointing out a highly upscale brand store. "I know this company."

"Oh wow," the lady at the counter said as they walked in. "You're the youngest Spectral customer I've ever seen come in here. So what can I do for you all today?"

"I need a dress for my birthday tomorrow," Zoe said, and smiled when the attendant wished her a happy birthday. "Dark, elegant, and not at all slutty."

"Price range?" Susie intentionally laughed at the question with a smug expression and folded arms. "Are you laughing because... oh. Oh, now I remember you. It's been years. Susie, right? This was when we were back at our old location, you were twelve or so, your dad wanted everything perfect."

"Yup, that's me, and that's him," Susie replied.

"I'll help get your friend the perfect dress for her. This way, please." She led them straight over to the expensive section (which still wasn't anywhere near as pricey as some of the stuff Spectral had), and Richard could no longer follow the conversation after that point. He put on a dress because it fit him and it looked cute, like buying a T-shirt; they were talking about principles of which he had no knowledge. He wondered if that was how his mother had felt earlier that morning when he discussed his dark art. He shifted from foot to foot in his boots, patiently waiting as Leslie and the attendant talked about cuts and silhouettes and bustlines.

Half an hour later, they were ready, and Zoe had a smug, royal expression on her face as well, hanging the well-stocked bag from one of Leslie's wheelchair handles. Richard hadn't been paying attention to how much it had cost and realized that he didn't care for the same reason Susie apparently didn't.

They passed a Gamestop, and Richard was genuinely surprised that it was still open. "If you want to get any games...?" Susie asked, still totally unconcerned with finances. She was on a date with her boyfriend - her absolutely adorable, rainbow dress-wearing, high heeled, pigtailed, gloved, and diapered dark Jedi of a boyfriend - and with her friends as well, the day before the birthday of, assuming everything went right, her future sister-in-law.

"Yar har, fiddle de dee," Richard replied, and Zoe briefly, quitely sang along with him. Their mother had, when given a Christmas bonus a couple years ago, purchased them decent computers but did not give them a lot of games, and they'd discovered other methods of getting them. Zoe was actually the one who'd taught her little brother how to torrent, and she wondered if she'd set him down the path to being able to do what he did.

"Any time I start playing a video game, I just wish I was working on a car or doing something else instead," Caroline said.

"I want one," Leslie replied. "I've got a PS4." She favored games with complex plotlines, things she could lose herself in and forget that she was a cripple for a while, and Susie browsed the racks with her and Zoe.

Although he was still committed to unrepentant piracy, Richard looked around as well for things he might want to play with Zoe, assuming they were on PC or could be emulated. He hadn't been playing much with her and realized that he should have been, this whole time, if not video games then something else. The two of them hadn't ever been that close, even before that nasty Christmas. Richard was generally avoidant of people in general, the sort of kid who hadn't had friends and hadn't really cared that he didn't. If he hadn't conjured up that fake bet, he would have never met Susie (the idea struck utter, primordial fear into him) and never would have saved Leslie, and abruptly he shuddered.

His thoughts were interrupted by the store clerk. "Hey, where's that from?" 

"Spectral Boutique," Richard answered.

"No, I mean what movie, game...?" Zoe chuckled. Caroline rolled her eyes.

"It's not from anything."

"Well, that's a pretty good OC," the clerk replied, going back to his computer. Richard just sighed. He really should have expected reactions like that one, too. They finished with Leslie getting four highly recommended JRPGs, all from the used section, and they continued their walk through the mall.

"I just realized, we didn't bring our swimwear," Zoe said as they passed a sporting goods store. Swimwear? Oh, right. Leslie had to be at the Y again at 3. 

Susie put on a bit of an imperious air. "That sounds suspiciously like asking me for something."

Zoe sighed. "Sorry, we can stop at home."

Susie laughed and playfully tugged on Zoe's arm towards the store. "I'm joking! C'mon. You must've had that bathing suit since last year! This counts as a birthday present."

Susie noticed something in the girls' swimwear section, and a bit of a smile went across her face. As the others browsed, she quietly handed Richard a twenty and told him to be a good boy, buy his swimming trunks, keep the change, and meet them at the entrance. Dutifully, and while taking stock of the other things in the store (he really did have to become more physically active, he realized), he bought a coral pink pair of swimming trunks in his size because that was definitely his color, paid for the trunks while wearing the Spectral dress and heels without even a hint of anxiety (this was far from the first flamboyant person the experienced cashier had checked out, although he might have been the youngest), and sat on a nearby bench, patiently waiting for the girls like he'd been told to. He realized he had to pee, but Susie had put him in a diaper, so he used it like she obviously expected him to.

He wondered if he'd be hit on. He really was cute, after all, a rainbow vision in a very sweet dress and heels and silky gloves with his hands daintily folded into his lap, his pigtails dangling, a soft little smile on his made-up face. He got looks, of course, from all the passers-by who he smiled at, including a mall cop who very carefully said nothing; none of them were teenage boys, as the number of teenage boys who'd hang out in a dying mall was fairly close to zero. And, as before, he was simply too obviously bait.

He got up as the girls approached, his smile still on his face, as Susie matched it with an unexplained expression of mischievous glee and the others with subtle smiles. The new bag hanging from Leslie's wheelchair had more stuff than a simple bathing suit, but he knew he wasn't allowed to ask what was in it. He'd always hated surprises when he was younger - they'd nearly all been from his mother and none of them had been good - but he was ready to accept any surprise fron Susie.

They returned to the car and decided what to do. None of them had spent very much time downtown before, and they wanted to walk around; there was plenty of stuff to see around the mall. "Hold up one second," Richard said, sitting halfway inside the car and changing into his flat boots. He really did love his heels, but if they were going to keep walking for a while, he didn't want the enjoyable sensation to turn into pain.

Leslie got a couple of texts as they started to explore, and she laughed. Apparently, legal staff from both sides had met in the courtroom while submitting paperwork to do the exact same thing: cancel the hearing. As her dad explained, his amusement visible through the text, her birth parents' lawyer was canceling the court date before he got laughed out of it. And that was truly the end of that.

"Ricky, can you come close? Like really close," Leslie said, and he bent down over her wheelchair. She hugged him, deeply and ferociously. It was a very awkward hug, out on a public sidewalk with him standing over her wheelchair wearing a dress, but neither one of them cared, and it lasted for a good ten seconds. He could feel her weak muscles shaking before she let him go.

The group walked down streets and through parks, taking time to take long, winding paths and even play on unattended playgrounds. They found a swingset, and Richard laughed without a care in the world, kicking his rainbow boots happily in the air, as Susie swung beside him, her own skirt fluttering as she kicked her expensive sneakers, laughing next to him. There was even a seat-swing, and Zoe pushed Leslie a great deal higher than the thing was really meant to be pushed. Richard had never felt so utterly free, so completely euphoric, in his life, and although his intrinsic cautiousness kept patrolling for signs that something was going to go wrong, nothing did. Did the occasional dog walker or jogger know he was a boy? He couldn't have possibly cared less. When they stopped swinging, he leapt out of it, and his dress fluttered into the air, possibly exposing his damp diaper to anyone who might have been watching (no one was) and landing easily in his rainbow boots on the mulched surface.

They went to the public bathroom together, as girls often do, and they were probably the first ones to have used it in days. Being changed on the cold concrete floor wasn't particularly pleasant, even if the day was warm and Susie was changing him, but he was going through the same thing as Leslie. He wondered if Susie would keep him in diapers even if the therapy worked and Leslie no longer needed them, and he realized with a rush of joy and love that she really was his princess and he really did absolutely trust her to take care of him, even make decisions for him, because he knew that she'd never, ever do anything to him that he wouldn't enjoy. (The idea came, unbidden, that she'd betray him somehow, and he shut that down hard and fast. He couldn't turn off his low-level caution, but he could and would keep it suppressed.)

They went into a bookstore next, one full of old books that none of them had ever seen before (along with the characteristic, musty smell), and the prices were so low and the books were so old that Richard was able to snag five Nivens with just the change from buying his swimming trunks. It was Caroline who splurged there, finding books that she planned on giving to her father, manuals and guides to old cars that she thought never existed. The proprietor was also old, old enough to have seen everything, and all he told Richard was that his gloves matched his dress very well. Leslie had the most trouble, as the aisles were way too narrow for her to bring in her wheelchair (Zoe kept looking to make sure no one would steal it) and she couldn't get to low or high shelves.

As they left, they realized that they'd spent way more time than they thought and that it was time to start driving back. Richard wondered where the time went. Did he really spend four hours walking around and having fun in his new dress? It felt like he'd just gotten started! He couldn't remember the last time he'd been so immersed, so completely content with life, that the clock had gotten away from him.

As he lacked a backpack this time, Richard changed in the car, Susie pulling up the dress as he leaned back again and gently tousling his hair out of his pigtails. He changed directly into his swimming trunks from his unused diaper, replacing his boots with his boys' socks and shoes. Caroline chuckled, noticing his contortions in the passenger's seat, but he was thirteen years old and could make them without hurting himself.

As they approached the Y, Susie simply flat-out told her friends that she was buying a month of membership for everyone who didn't have one and that she intended to keep doing so. They were under 18, so the price was fairly cheap, and as Leslie greeted Mindy again, she could tell that the woman had been thinking about something.

"What's on your mind?" Leslie asked.

"It's just stuff your parents told me about, it turned out not to matter." The group obviously knew what was going on, and she relaxed a bit. She'd been worried about her since Wednesday, when Leslie's father had given her the bad news, right up until she got the good news. She was very curious about exactly what the hell had gone down but was simply too professional to ask adults, let alone teenagers. "Good news in the end, but we still can't slack off. You need to be in the best shape possible for it, and that's six more sessions, counting today. You ready?"

"Of course," Leslie replied, and Mindy noted that the girl was even more chipper than she'd been three days ago, the two of them smiling at each other. Mindy didn't know just how much Leslie's friends were helping her, but it was obviously a lot, and Christ, if her birth parents had managed to interfere...

The hour-long swim session went almost exactly as it had on Tuesday's, with Richard chasing his girlfriend around in his pink swimming trunks, but he did somewhat better despite having been walking around all day. The hot tub was still closed - Richard was still slightly peeved about that - and he walked out as he'd come in.

"I guess we better get you home for your pills," Caroline told Leslie as they got in the car.

"I brought a package with me, but I'm really supposed to take them with food," Leslie said. The group had eaten nothing since breakfast, and they were feeling it.

"Where are we going this time?" Zoe asked, looking at Susie, expecting the name of some fancy restaurant or other.

"Let's eat in," Susie said instead. "I guarantee it's healthy and I have a good assistant cook." Richard chuckled and smiled. One of the other girls might have protested, he was the hero of the day after all, but he obviously enjoyed being treated that way. Susie braided his hair again on the way there, tying the braids off with the rainbow hairbands, and helping him back into his colorful dress after he put his diaper back on. He took the opportunity to try the heels he'd never tried before, the five-inch ones that put him firmly on his toes, putting his gloves back on and enjoying their silky feel. He smiled as he stepped out of the car, his first-ever step in heels that high, his butt wiggling a bit as he minced up to the door. There was a slight wind, and his braids and dress fluttered in it.

Richard set the table while Susie began preparations, carefully tiptoeing back and forth as he diligently and carefully placed the tableware, the contentment never leaving his face. The evening's meal was something with the interesting name of 'morgh', and while it had the 'mor-' prefix of death, it was very rich in healthy vegetables and the protein that Leslie needed.

"Make sure no one is going to disturb you on Sunday," Susie whispered to him as they prepared ingredients, his gloves stashed in his pockets because he didn't want to get them messy.

"Yes, Your Highness," he whispered back. He suspected that the unspoken stuff they'd bought at the sporting goods store would play a part in that.

Leslie showed her friends Animal Crossing as the food cooked (the smell was wonderful), and Richard graciously and happily served it once it was done, eagerly sitting next to Susie, and they fed each other bites. It tasted even better than it smelled.

They watched another romantic comedy once they were done eating, all five of them on the couch together, the girls in their socks and Richard still in his heels because he didn't want to take them off, Zoe with her arm around Leslie while Susie and Richard shamelessly embraced one another, his silky gloves often brushing against her breasts. The movie wasn't Persian this time but was still very foreign; Richard had never seen a Bollywood movie before, and neither had any of the girls except Susie, and as they laughed at the very ridiculous plot together, Richard felt such an enormous sense of well-being that he could not even imagine wanting to live any other way. Happiness, joy, love, contentment, peace, acceptance... he could not even think of the right word. Every evening that he wasn't alone with Susie, he wanted to spend just like this, even after he had a job. He did not believe in God, but he prayed from the bottom of his heart that nothing would ever take this away from him, or at least not in a way that he couldn't undo.


	7. Mermaid in Training

Richard was really anticipating Sunday, which is why he had stayed up late reading Niven and absolutely crushing it at Starcraft. His own worry, his own fear, had gotten in his way in previous games; that was no more. He'd never felt more confident in his life, and he looked forward to spending more time at Susie's house, this time in the company of his sister and friends.

He was just surprised that Zoe had been okay with him wearing the prom dress that she'd been shoved into at his own birthday party, as he'd thought it'd be a nasty reminder, but she enjoyed the juxtaposition. They realized that they should have planned this better by taking it over there before Heather got home, and they discussed ways to get it past her, but it was Leslie who came up with the best plan: simply carry out the box and, if asked, openly admit what was in it but say that Zoe planned to ritually destroy it. (The heels in his size would be in the bottom of the box.) She'd suggested bringing it back and saying that they hadn't decided to, but Susie had something better: she'd simply leave the stuff at her house. After all, she said with an enormous smile, it was good for Richard to have a dress anywhere he spent a lot of time.

"You should wear your swimming trunks here, too," Susie had told him with a grin, "but don't plan on wearing them into the pool." Richard did absolutely not ask if she was planning on skinny-dipping with him or not.

Saturday morning, Heather's children had come down to breakfast with her as she'd asked, and Zoe was already wearing a dress of her own, and it was obviously very high-class. Heather wanted to talk about it - wanted to ask where she bought it, even knowing who had bought it for her - but she kept quiet. She'd already agreed to let this be Zoe's party, and one of the words that Robert and Willa had used with her was 'vicarious', briefly explaining that some parents try to regain their own childhoods through their children, which never, ever works. Her newly fourteen-year-old daughter was going to have a party at the rich girl's place (Richard's girlfriend, she had to remind herself) with the people she cared about, and that simply did not include most of her family.

Heather felt like she'd pulled back from the brink, a thing she'd done once before. After a long series of failed dating experiences after her separated husband had finally overdosed, she'd found a man who seemed very nice and charming. A couple of weeks later, she'd come home one day, and her daughter, then not even eight years old, had quietly told her through tears that he had gotten drunk, slapped her, and tried to threaten her and her little brother into shutting up about it. He'd denied everything, but she'd seen the mark on her face and smelled the alcohol on him, and she'd wisely believed her sobbing children and not his 'she fell down' nonsense. That was the last potential stepfather her children had ever had. She had a union job, after all, she'd gotten her highly affordable mortgage shortly after the 2008 collapse, and she'd done 'pooled' community daycare until her children were old enough to look after themselves.

No, she really did not want to make bad decisions for them or do things that they would despise her for in the long term, especially not now that Richard had apparently become a powerful internet sorcerer when she wasn't looking. She was just glad that Zoe was doing safe things with safe people and that Richard had found friends and a girlfriend, although she was disappointed that he was just wearing his casual clothes. Would it have killed him to dress up a bit for his sister's party?

The plan to smuggle the dress worked, as Heather hadn't really even noticed the box, being far more worried about what was in her children's heads.

Instead, her children were the ones surprised by a dress, because Caroline was wearing it. It was generally elegant and tasteful, black and coming up to her mid-thigh, but Caroline was not the sort of girl to wear heels higher than an inch. Leslie, too, was wearing a dress, a green one that went to her knees, something that she'd had for a while but never had any occasion to wear. If she wore most dresses for someone her size, she looked like a kid. If she wore a dress with a more grown-up cut, she looked like a kid trying to look grown-up. The dress she had on was somewhat in between, and she didn't care if it exposed her leg braces.

"I didn't even know you owned a dress," Richard told Caroline upon getting into the passenger seat, while Zoe got into the back and tossed the box to the other side of her girlfriend and telling her how pretty she looked.

"I was actually gonna wear it to a school dance before the kung flu hit," Caroline replied.

Leslie broke up laughing. "Kung flu?! Where did you hear that, oh my God, Caroline," she said between giggles.

"President of the United States, who else?" Caroline replied, shrugging as she drove.

"He's not even close to the first person to say that," Richard said. On some parts of the internet he knew well (and didn't go to anymore; having a girlfriend made him want to stop hanging out where people called each other cucks all day), that was among the least offensive of the terms he'd heard for it.

They got to Susie's house where she opened the door for them, and Richard inhaled sharply. She was wearing a white dress, the nearly diaphanous fabric contrasting with her darker skin, and combined with the sparkling gems on her ears and neck and her very carefully applied make-up, she really did look like a princess of some ancient, far-off country. Richard had never seen her wearing jewelry before, and his reaction was better than any compliment. Susie smiled in pure, sublime regality. Her father had told her that she ought not flaunt her wealth too conspicuously, or others might want to steal it from her, so they'd never seen her looking this rich, this elegant, this totally in charge of everything around her.

"Have you the box?" the princess asked with an imperious air.

"The box I have," Zoe said, getting it out of the car as she helped Leslie out. "Talk like Yoda, I can as well." They all shared giggles. She handed the box to Richard. Four of them were wearing dresses, which they were complimenting each other on, and five would be soon; one of them was male, and zero of them would expect anything else from him.

It was only when putting it on in the downstairs bathroom that Richard realized just how poofy the prom dress, with all its layered petticoats, really was. Like the Christmas dress, it fit around his chest differently but still fit him; unlike that dress, it ended at the upper chest but went all the way down to his ankles. If Susie wasn't there to help him, he'd have to put on his jingly pink socks and heels first, because once the petticoats were on, he wasn't touching his own feet without a lot of work. Being thirteen, nimble, and not obese meant that the zipper being on the back wouldn't have slowed him down for a second, even if she weren't there to zip him up. The one thing he couldn't do at all, still, was braid his own hair into pigtails, and he still didn't know enough about makeup to give himself the subtle girly touches Susie was giving him.

They all clapped when he and Susie emerged, and he gave them a deep, slightly jingly curtsy, pinching the sides of his dress with his pink gloves. "That is definitely the dress for you, Ricky," Zoe said with authority and finality. He looked like a precious little girl attending the party of someone much older, a cute little sweetheart trying to look as pretty as she could to fit in. All the other girls, even Leslie, looked like genuine royalty next to his dress-up dress. Zoe smiled in pure, smug satisfaction, feeling like was the way things were meant to be, and the fact that he was smiling and blushing a little, nodding subtly in agreement, only cemented that idea. He felt exactly as cute and as precious as he looked.

"Not all the time," Leslie pointed out. "Doesn't he have to cook sometimes, too?" There was lots of chuckling, from Richard as well. There was no way he was doing anything other than being a precious little cutie wearing that.

"Not right now, he doesn't," Susie said. "Besides, I am your hostess, and the hostess provides. And, before it starts warming up outside, the hostess shall provide entertainment," she said, gesturing to the couch. Richard made sure to daintily walk on his toes rather than put any weight on his heels, as he didn't want to leave prints in the carpet again.

"What movie?"

"Youtube videos," Susie replied. The videos she had selected for the group to watch on the big screen were a carefully chosen list of things that Zoe was interested in, as given by what she'd shared in the chat, although a lot of them were more blurry than any of them might have liked on Susie's enormous widescreen. Most of them were of cute things, and Richard felt absolutely precious in his pretty dress while watching baby animals and snuggling with his girlfriend, feeling much the same way he had last night, only cuter, as her body pressed his petticoats against him. Zoe realized the genius of it after she'd started watching; she'd been worried about what to do all day for her birthday, and Susie had put her into a worry-free situation instead.

They talked some as they watched, and she learned that the house had been fairly well occupied once, with Susie and her three older brothers along with their parents. As the youngest of the family, Susie had always been treated like a princess from the moment she was born.

Eventually, it got warm enough for swimming, and the five of them disrobed and took the opportunity to go to the bathroom. Susie hadn't put Richard in diapers; this was Zoe's day, after all, and him wetting himself and needing to be changed would have been a distraction. Changing Leslie out of her diaper and into her swim diaper was quite enough.

"You told me to wear my trunks but not to wear them to the pool. Why not?" Richard asked Susie in confusion as they approached Susie's moderately substantial outdoor pool. It was well maintained; she'd found time to set everything up or, more likely, she'd called someone to do it for her. (Richard suddenly felt a pang of jealousy on thinking that a 'pool boy' was coming to Susie's house.)

"Because today, that's not your swimsuit," she told him, putting on her imperious air. "This is your swimsuit." She picked up a long-sleeved, iridescent, blue-green leotard with the words "Mermaid in Training" prominently displayed in the chest. Surprised that this was in his size, he eagerly put it on as the girls watched, the stretchy spandex hugging his arms and chest while giving him a mild wedgie. Susie giggled. "Now sit by the pool," she instructed him, and he saw why: the next thing to be put on him was a long, body-hugging mermaid tail, and he eagerly put his legs together so she could pull it up to his waist, his feet fitting into the solid tailfin. She strapped a couple of stiff fins to his hands and gently pushed him into the cool, lightly chlorinated water. "Practice in the shallow end!" she told him, giggling.

He realized very quickly that this wasn't just some outfit meant to make him look silly or girly; this was real swimming equipment, and he practiced with it as the designers had obviously intended, Susie giggling as he dolphin-kicked his way back and forth at the shallow end, Zoe and Caroline stealing looks at him as they helped Leslie undress.

"Wait, you forgot something," Zoe said, and he swam up to her. She kneeled down and applied sunblock to his face and the back of his neck, pulling his wet pigtails out of the way to do so. Then, giggling, she patted her precious sissy brother on the head and he went back to having fun while she applied sunblock to herself and Leslie after getting the girl out of her leg braces. This was always tricky, but Caroline was there to help.

The girls slipped in next to him, playfully splashing the mermaid boy, and that was a mistake because the hand fins also made him a much better splasher than they were, and then Susie challenged him to a race to the deep end and back. This race was much closer than the others had been, as her pool was far from Olympic in size, and he was able to kick off the wall in his mermaid tail and she won by a few feet. The second time was basically a tie, and the third one he actually won, pushing his way through the water as hard as he could. Susie gave him a kiss on the cheek as he hung by the side of the pool, panting. She hadn't let him win.

They stayed in the water a while, playing together, and then Caroline decided to work on her tan and Zoe helped Leslie out of the water, and Susie went to get them banana smoothies.

Zoe luxuriated, exulted, reveled, her arm around her girlfriend's too-light body and the light reflecting off a pair of sunglasses that Susie had given her. There were only two things that could make this more perfect. The first was skin that tanned; she had to wear sunblock just like Richard did, or she was going to get very fried very quickly. The second was that she wanted to be somewhere even more luxurious than this, maybe a mansion or chalet in the Carribean or Monaco, where she and Leslie, her body completely fixed by the treatment, would enjoy a long, sensuous threesome with a very rich, toned man. (She would have to inquire about Susie's three older brothers at some point. Surely they qualified.) Being able to get to a place like that was almost enough on its own, and abruptly she understood Caroline's dream of marrying a charter pilot.

'Do you love her for her personality?' was the age-old question of relationships. She was, in fact, attracted to Leslie's personality, outgoing and pleasant when she wasn't in the depths of self-doubt, because that was how she'd first known her. They'd been chatting for a week before the pandemic had really taken hold, the schools had been closed, and Caroline had found time to take up the habit of driving her friends around. In the first few days of chatting, Zoe hadn't even been aware that Leslie was disabled. They'd experimented together, furtively and awkwardly in the back seat of Caroline's car, and it wasn't until they'd given each other the first true orgasms of their entire lives that they really fell in love. (Zoe was just glad Leslie was capable of that. It wasn't apparent, looking at her.) Zoe was sure that there were depths to her, things that neither of them knew much about, buried by emotional abuse and disability.

Caroline, at least, was somewhat easy to get. She was a physical sort of person, but she'd straight up said before that she couldn't stand the shallow girls that populated her school. If the only people she could deal with were a couple years younger than her, so be it. Besides, driving them around had put her at Susie's poolside too, wearing suntan lotion rather than powerful sunblock because she had the complexion for it despite her blonde hair.

And then there was Richard. Zoe knew so much more about her brother than she had a week ago. If she had been asked to honestly describe him last week, she would have said something along the lines of 'He plays games a lot, he stays in his room most of the time, and he doesn't like talking to people. I think he just kinda despises everyone.' He simply hadn't trusted her or anyone with who he really was, and she didn't want to think about what would happen if one of them betrayed his trust. Giant smoking crater, indeed.

Getting Leslie's birth parents put away was his crowning achievement when it came to helping Zoe, but if it weren't for that 'mermaid in training' happily splashing around the pool in his swim fins with not a care in the world, she would probably be in the middle of yet another vile non-party just like the one he'd had before, after having attended a wedding neither of them wanted to attend, and her cousins would be there and her friends would not, as she'd never want them to go to a thing like that. Either that, or she'd be in a full-on screamfest with her mother, as her mother would have bought yet another humilating, infantilizing dress for this birthday as well, and there was a good chance that she'd have finally snapped and taken a pair of scissors to it.

But he'd done his thing, he'd been doing his thing, and so she was instead sitting on a comfortable pool chair with her arm lovingly draped around her to-be-healed girlfriend while he was the one in the super-childish outfit. If Heather had tried to make her wear a thing like that, tail and all, the scissors just might have gone straight to her mother's throat if not her own. Meanwhile, her brother would willingly and happily wear it until he outgrew it, and knowing Susie, she'd probably have another one made for him if she couldn't find it in his size.

'There's no explaining fetishes', someone had told her a while ago, probably Susie. (She didn't feel like checking.) This was simply pleasant for him, and she'd already resolved never to make it unpleasant for him. She wondered what his limits were, what he really did and didn't want done to him, and figured that Susie would probably find them out if she didn't already know.

Susie... Susie, she thought she understood. A lot of wealthy girls did the 'oh no, I'm not that rich' thing, trying to make themselves look like proletariat rather than bourgeoisie. Susie went in entirely the other direction, obviously valuing wealth, power, and dominance with unrestrained glee, even if she did hostess stuff like serve (very delicious) smoothies herself. The only reason she had friends at all was that she was genuinely a nice person, making her the true inverse of those other wealthy girls, and Zoe wondered how someone like her would fare on social media. (The answer was poorly. Susie had never used Twitter nor Instagram, and she'd been on Facebook for all of two hours before wiping everything and deactivating her account in absolute disgust.)

She'd wanted a boy she could keep to heel - Zoe had known that before she even knew Richard was into this kind of thing - and she'd decisively found the one she wanted. Zoe wondered just how far she'd take this, in every sense of the word, and wondered if Richard would wind up wearing a collar and a maid outfit while feeding Susie grapes by the pool. Yes, Zoe mused. What a terrible fate, to be kept forever as the love slave of the girl of his dreams. Oh no. Shock and horror. Clearly an awful tragedy to befall the boy.

But, for the moment at least, it was Susie who was feeding Richard, holding a banana milkshake with a straw because he couldn't hold anything in his hand fins.

The doorbell rang, and Susie immediately ran off to get it. "Everyone stay here, this is private," she said as she moved.

At the door was a twenty-something man with messy hair and cheap clothes, carrying a cardboard box. "Oh, crap. No wonder you wanted to do it this way. You're underage!" he shouted on seeing who he was making the delivery to.

"Are you leaving with the money or the box?" Susie asked in response, waving a roll of previously counted twenties that she'd stashed nearby.

Making a snap decision, the man said "I don't know you and you sure as shit don't know me," tossed the box at Susie's feet, snagged the money out of her hand, briefly flipped through it to make sure it was somewhat accurate (she'd actually included a tip), and double-time hustled to his car to get the hell out of there.

Despite it being on the other side of the house, they'd all heard the exchange, even Richard, who was sipping the shake by the pool where Susie had left it, keeping it steady between his hand fins. "Only one person gets to know what that was about," Susie said before anyone could ask anything, "and he gets to know tomorrow."

"Enjoy your bondage gear, just hope it's not a buttplug," Caroline said, deadpan, and Leslie broke out laughing. Richard looked particularly nervous. Did he really want to have something shoved up his ass? Well, maybe if it was Susie, but even then...

"Seriously, there better not be a chastity belt in there," Zoe added. "Or whatever the hell those things are called." Leslie laughed some more, holding her girlfriend close as she did.

"Zoe! I am not about to put your brother in a chastity cage. And no buttplugs either. I swear." Those had actually been two of the things she could have ordered, using that poor delivery boy as an intermediary, but she'd decided against them for a great many reasons. Richard couldn't hide his relief. Having his dick locked in metal or plastic would have been a.. well, a 'boondoggle' at the least. "Please, just stop asking about it. If he wants to, he'll tell you after tomorrow. This is your party, and that little delivery wasn't part of it."

"So what are you getting her, anyway?" Caroline asked. "Other than curiosity?"

"Actually, now's the perfect time. I'll be right back." Richard had just finished his milkshake when Susie came back with clenched hands. "Leslie, this is your half, and Zoe, this is your half." She opened her hands to reveal two half-heart pendant necklaces, one with Leslie's name on it and the other with Zoe's, diamonds around the outer curves of each one. The two matched up perfectly, like puzzle pieces, and Zoe got the one with Leslie's name and vice versa.

"Are those real gold and diamonds?" Leslie asked softly, and it wasn't clear whether or not her voice choking up was because of her disability or because she was that touched by the gift. She felt the 'you don't deserve anything good' part of herself well up again, as it so often did, and she forced it back down as her adoptive parents had taught her.

"That's 14 karat gold and real lab-created diamonds because I know the jeweler and Dad thinks De Beers can go fuck itself. Rule. One," Susie replied. "You're all done swimming?" They were. "All right, merboy, time to come on land." She pulled up a wide seat and pulled off his hand fins, helping him wiggle out of the pool and onto the chair, still in his restrictive tail. He made no effort to take it off, and Susie sat beside him, running her hands over his wet pigtails as he held her warmth against him.

"Hey, Susie, what were you talking about with the lab-created diamonds thing?" he asked, enjoying her touch.

"They're the same thing as mined diamonds, only without the African child slaves."

"Yes, she prefers her slaves closer," Caroline replied, and everyone except Susie laughed.

"Caroline, you're terrible!" Susie tried to sound indignant, but she was giggling instead. "I'm not going to do any Fifty Shades crap to him!" She held a protective arm around her boyfriend.

"Wasn't that originally a Twilight fanfic?" Richard asked, hugging her back.

"Ricky, how the hell do you know this shit?" Caroline sharply asked in response.

"I went looking for it," he replied. "That's actually one of the most vanilla things out there. Actually, can we just stop with this? We'll ruin Zoe's party if we keep talking about it." He was fairly sure that some of the things he'd read, let alone seen, would make them lose their appetites for days and might even discourage Susie from playing with him.

"Well, then, I have a question," Leslie said. "Ricky, would you rather wear your mermaid outfit to the YMCA pool or your prom dress to the mall?"

"Both sound pretty good," Richard replied to giggles and laughter, "but I think I'd go with the mermaid suit, just to see how I'd do there." He abruptly realized that Leslie was expecting a question in return and that this was a party game. He visibly thought of something. "Would you rather soar like an eagle or fly like a hummingbird?"

"Hummingbird," Leslie replied immediately. "They can fly upside down." The only one in the group who was not of the same opinion there was Caroline, who would use the eagle's flight to go places, as she'd always wanted to do. They kept playing Would You Rather for a solid two hours, discussing things like growing extra fingers and which of the Willy Wonka fates they'd rather suffer, prompting questions about which movie and comparisons between Susie and Veruca Salt. Leslie was, by far, the best at the game, immediately coming up with questions in different contexts and answering pretty much everything immediately as well.

Caroline had to go inside, as she'd get fried rather than tanned if she didn't, and after Susie had pulled the mermaid tail off Richard and Zoe had put Leslie back into her leg braces, they went downstairs to play pool of a different sort, still in their swimsuits.

They agreed on fair rules. The order would be Zoe first, because this was her party, then Leslie, then Richard, then Caroline, then Susie. The goal was simply to sink balls with the cue ball, regardless of number, and sinking a ball would not let you go twice in a row. (It would have been boring without that rule. It was Susie's table, and Caroline also knew what she was doing.)

Zoe imitated what she'd seen on TV, her pendant hanging down on the mat, and Caroline helped her adjust her arms for a good hit. She made a solid break that didn't sink anything but lined Leslie up for a good shot.

Leslie needed assistance just to get into position, and both Zoe and Caroline held her steady. All she had to do was a tap, a tap she made easily. (Zoe swore that she didn't set her up intentionally, but of course she didn't have the skill to do that.)

Then it was Richard's turn. Bent over in his mermaid leotard, his butt stuck out as he imitated what Zoe had done, and it made a wonderfully tempting target. Susie was not mean enough to spank it before he made his shot; besides, that might have made him scrape the cue against the mat. She waited until after he made it - a solid but slightly off-target hit that made the target ball fly to the other side of the table and stay there - to moderately whap him with her hand, and he shouted not in surprise but in smugness. "I knew it! I knew you were going to do that!" Richard suddenly realized that, if any other group of people had done that to him, he would have (at the very least) immediately ran out of the house and never talked to any of them again, possibly even his sister. But she was his girlfriend and these were his friends, and they had no malice towards him, and it was all okay.

"That was for leaving heel prints on my carpet the other day," Susie said with her imperious tone, sparking some giggles.

Caroline simply sunk the next ball, and Susie was able to pop one in as well (Richard considered doing the same thing to her, but decided against it), and the other three mostly fumbled around. Richard sunk one that he wasn't even aiming for in a stroke of beginner's luck, Zoe sunk one in while scratching the cue ball ("Don't worry, it still counts," Susie said), and Leslie wasn't able to do much more that game. Caroline had actually outscored Susie, but she was insistent that if it were a real game, Susie would have smoked her.

The other three played Smash Brothers - Caroline's misgivings about video games did not pertain to in-person multiplayer - while Susie and Richard made a specific variant of lubia polo. They put their dresses back on to have a formal meal, and the sight of Richard happily jingling up to her while obediently serving her in his pretty prom dress was a thing that Zoe would cherish forever.

"I have never tasted this spice before," Richard said on his first bite. "It's like licorice, I think?" It was blended with a great many other spices. Susie watched him carefully and then decided that he liked it.

"Star anise," Caroline said immediately.

"Yeah, my dad gets this stuff by the ton. All of us could eat it at every meal and have enough for fifty years," Susie replied, taking another bite.

"Can we ask the question now?" Caroline asked in response. "Do you want to tell us just what it is your dad does?" Richard was actually half-expecting 'mob boss'. Susie's dad being a member of the Iranian mafia would explain many things.

"He's an importer," Susie replied, which made Richard suspect 'mob boss' even more. "The whole Middle East, Pakistan, even India, basically anywhere he can really. The pandemic really didn't hurt his business, it's just that he has trouble flying home. So he's on one of his own cargo ships right now. He'll be back Wednesday for like... a week. Then he has to take another slow boat."

Something in her voice clued Leslie in. "Is he avoiding you?" she asked.

Susie sighed a bit. "You've told your big secrets. This one is mine. You never fucking repeat this to anyone." They all agreed, particularly since Susie so rarely swore. "A couple years ago, Dad said that the more I grew up, the more I looked like Mom, and so he said that he was thinking about me like Mom." There was general revulsion. "He hates himself for it! He really does, he's never touched me or anything, and I really don't think he will. That's why he mostly stays away from me, because he's kinda trying to protect me from himself. And he needs to visit my brothers, and they're all over the world, to make sure they're doing their jobs right. They're getting the business, I'm getting the house and a trust fund," she explained. "I know, it's pure patriarchy, he seems to think that I'll have a man to take care of me." She looked over at Richard and fluttered her eyelashes. "You will take care of me, won't you Ricky?" she asked in a feminine, high-pitched tone, and laughter ensued.

"Of course," he immediately replied, because there was nothing else to say even if he was wearing a pink girly prom dress, and there was more laughter.

"I'm actually kind of glad he's coming home," Susie explained. "He's going to teach me how to drive." The youngest a teenager could be to get a full, real driver's license in the state was 16, and Susie was going to just straight-up get a car for her birthday. (Susie had resolved to drive the same way Caroline did.) "I wonder which lucky boy is going to be in the passenger's seat once I've got my license?" There was giggling, and Richard smiled.

"Just don't drive him crazy," Leslie said, and got the laughter she'd expected.

The Squad talked and kept laughing about silly crap and finished their food, and of course Richard politely and daintily put the dishes away even if he didn't dare wash them in his pretty dress, and eventually it was time to go home and for Richard to reluctantly dress like an ordinary boy again.

Zoe was satisfied. No, she was more than satisfied. That was what a birthday should be, she decided, and she was very, very glad that she had who she had as a sibling, a girlfriend, and friends. Richard, too, was highly satisfied, the contentment clear on his face, and as soon as Heather greeted her children, she only asked if they'd had a nice time as a formality, and barbed, spiked guilt hit her in the stomach as she realized the sort of birthday she'd have given her daughter.

'Another enjoyable day spent,' Richard thought, picking up where he'd left off with Larry Niven. 'Nothing went wrong today.' His mother, not entirely foolish, had taught her children something important a long time ago: it was never what you expected to go wrong that would go wrong. If something went wrong outside his abilities, there really wasn't anything he could do by definition, and if he ever needed to use his skills again, it probably wouldn't be when or where he'd expect to need them, because that was how these things always went. And if anything were to go wrong with Susie, he'd probably fall into depression and never wear a dress again.

He had to stop thinking that way, he resolved. He had an enjoyable life and every right to enjoy it. He went to sleep, dreaming of what the next day would bring.


	8. What's in the Box?

Heather made her children breakfast, a real, traditional one of bacon, eggs, and toast, and they ate in a lot more comity than they had previously, both of them even volunteering to help cook and wash dishes. (Zoe decided it'd be suspicious if Richard was the only one doing it.) It was raining somewhat, and Richard considered his options. Should he just go and walk? Should he tell his mother that... no. No, he didn't need to try to work around her, or he shouldn't. Instead, he asked straight-out as he finished washing up, "Hey, Mom, can you drop me off at Susie's house?" This was a moment of truth. If she said anything but 'Okay, honey' at this point, things were going to get awkward.

"Okay, honey," she said, those exact words, and Richard inwardly relaxed, not realizing what his mother was thinking as they put their shoes on and walked to the car. The girl was extremely well-off and a couple years older than he was, so the responsibility would be on her. Even if her children hadn't powerleveled themselves, there was no way that Heather was going to interfere with this! Her only consideration was that she ought not let her son be used, but that wasn't much of a concern anymore.

Richard, for his part, squirmed in the passenger seat, hiding his growing dick in his shorts as he thought of how Susie was going to use him.

Heather looked over at her son when they were halfway there. "Honey, I can't blame you for wanting to spend a lot of time with her and your other friends, but you should be still be spending time with your mother too. I'll pick you up at six for dinner."

"Okay." It was not an unreasonable request. It gave him about nine hours with Susie. She was there, waiting for him, and she opened the door to greet him as he stepped out of the car.

"You two have fun!" Heather called through the open door, and her son smiled at her, waved, gave a friendly goodbye, and closed it.

"Wow, Ricky. Your mom actually just dropped you off here, with me, and said 'you two have fun'?" She abruptly started giggling, and her giggles were infectious. "Wowww. That almost makes up for all that stupid crap she tried on your sister. So there's no way she or anyone is going to interrupt us today, is there?" she asked as they walked in together. She had made very sure that no one would try to get in contact with her that day, even going as far as to call her father earlier that morning so he wouldn't call her later.

"There shouldn't be until six o'clock, she wants me to eat dinner at home," he replied. His mother clearly didn't intend to interrupt this and the rest of the Squad was almost certainly not going to, either. ('Hey, Ricky? Sorry to interrupt you and Susie, but there's a big emergency, there's someone we need you to destroy...') Smiling at his own thoughts, he looked to Susie's side and noticed a lot of pink garments and accessories that he didn't think he'd ever see in person, at least not any time soon. Oh, wow. That was what was in the box? This day was shaping up very, very well for him.

"Good," she said, turning on her maximum princess mode. There are quite a few commands that a teenage girl can give her boyfriend, even in a normal relationship, that he is very likely to obey without question. "Strip!" is among the most obvious of these, and once she gave that order, his clothes were in a pile on the floor in seconds; the only things he was wearing were a look of anticipation and an erection. "On the table are your clothes for the day," she said, pointing at the things that she'd spent so long preparing.

After a lot of careful thought, she had decided that unless she absolutely had to, she would not tell him the whole truth about where this stuff had come from. It would ruin the experience for him - it was almost ruining it for her. She knew beyond any shadow of a doubt that the rumor about the ten-year-olds and the shotgun was true, because these were the products the babysitter's parents had made before that incident. After it, they'd shut their website down and offloaded all their products to a friend of the husband's (with similar interests) well below cost, just to get it away from them before they wound up in deep shit. A friend of that friend had been the one to deliver the stuff, as he'd chatted her up in a femdom-related chat room, telling the story as a 'rumor' rather than admitting at first how he knew it was true, thinking she was far older. The fact that they both happened to be in the Greater Area was just dumb luck.

She had also made some alterations. Many of the items had come with chains and padlocks, and she'd been antsy about the idea of actually locking him into the stuff, thinking that maybe he would object - and then she had realized that she was objecting to the idea herself, that she was uncomfortable with doing that to him regardless of what he might feel about it, and after a bit of worry, the lightbulb had come on and she'd almost slapped herself for being silly. On each of the items, she'd popped the stitches that were securing the middle of the chain to the inside, then she'd threaded it by tying the ribbon to one end of the chain and pulling out the other end. Caroline could surely find uses for the chains that were far from their original purpose.

She blinked in shock when he asked outright, anticipation coloring his voice, "Did these have chains before you put your ribbons in there?" Crap! How could she possibly have forgotten how smart he was?! Of course he knew the ribbons were hers, they were cut from the same spool of pink ribbon she'd used to tie him with the other day, the ribbon spool she'd mentally filed as being for fun times with Ricky. And of course he knew the concept, he was internet savvy and this was his kink!

"Yes, they did. I'm not gonna do that," she said plainly. He simply smiled and nodded. "In fact, I'm not even going to put them on you unless you ask me to." He hesitated for a bit, and she worried that maybe he was about to nope out, but he was actually thinking about what order he'd ask for them in.

"Please put me in my dress, Your Highness," Richard said, still smiling, eagerly lifting up his arms so she could put it on.

"Oh? You want to wear this dress? This is a dress for little babies. Are you a little baby?" she asked in a half-imperious, half-matronly tone as she put it on him. The dress was bright pink with puffed sleeves and lots of soft lace around all the edges, decorated with lambs and hearts. It felt more like a shirt than a dress because it barely went past his waist. It was locking, but she simply didn't apply a lock to the back zipper.

"Mmm hmm!" he replied, smiling. "Please put me in my baby diaper, Your Highness."

"Of course, little baby," she replied, giggling. The diapers that he had been wearing previously were conventional adult diapers, carefully engineered to be as unobtrusive as possible. These diapers were bright pink, extraordinarily thick, covered with pictures of teddy bears and diaper pins, and specifically designed to crinkle as much as possible instead. She followed that up with a pair of thick, clear, and also very crinkly plastic pants that she'd converted from chain to ribbon, and she tied the ribbon in a tight bow before pulling up a big, pink, and fluffy lambs-and-hearts diaper cover as well, with three layers of lace ruffles over his thickly padded butt.

"Please put me in my mittens, Your Highness," Richard continued, eagerly holding out his hands.

"Oh? You want to wear these? You won't be able to hold anything wearing them," she told him as she put them on him, his only reply an eager, happy nod. The mittens had the same lambs-and-hearts pattern as the dress, with soft fleece inside and out separated by a layer of something stiff. She tied the ribbons in tight bows just as she had the diaper. He'd be able to untie those with the crook of his elbow or knee if he had to, but the odds of him ever wanting to do that were very slim indeed.

"Please put me in my booties, Your Highness." The smile was still on his face.

"Really? They won't let you walk. You'll just have to crawl everywhere instead. But if you insist," she told him, giggling some more, slipping the booties over his feet after he sat down on the couch, and he smiled as his booties, dress, diaper cover, and mittens all matched. He tentatively put a foot on the floor, and he felt the springs inside the sole push in, exposing his foot to some blunted spikes. He really would be reduced to crawling around before his princess in his booties, and he absolutely wanted to wear them for as long as he practically could.

"Please put me in my reins, Your Highness!" he almost squealed, his pitch rising as he was giddy with delight.

"Well, you certainly won't be able to crawl away in this," she told him, buckling the pink leather baby harness around his arms and chest. A little bunny motif and the words 'Sissy Baby' spelled out in baby blocks were front and center, and she buckled it around his back, leaving the place for the buckle lock empty. It was supposed to be used with a leash, but she'd substituted ribbon for that as well. "Look at you, Ricky. A helpless little baby in a pretty dress and crinkly diaper, unable to walk or hold anything, totally dependent on your princess to take care of you, and all because you specifically asked for it." She theatrically tsk-tsked, trying to keep up the persona, her breath getting as rapid with anticipation as his was. "Well? What do you have to say for yourself?"

"Please give me my pacifier, Your Highness," he eagerly replied.

"That's what I thought you'd say, and now you won't be able to say anything at all," she replied. He opened his mouth to let her place the teat inside, and the harness went around his head and chin, and she adjusted the straps before buckling it in the back. There was another place for a lock that went unused. "If you really want out, tap on something three times in a row," she whispered to him, and he nodded. He could probably mumble something around the teat, it was big but not that big, but he decided to keep quiet and suckle on his pacifier instead. There seemed to be a plugged hole in the center of it, and he didn't know why.

"And now for the piece de resistance," she added, picking up a pair of bulky, very high-quality headphones. They had originally been her mother's, and she had stopped wearing them well before she got cancer because they were simply too good, meant for studio and professional use. With the active noise cancellation, even someone shouting at her, inches from her face, had been barely audible. Susie's father had, as usual, bought his wife extremely top-of-the-line equipment, but the fact that they'd come with a handheld wireless microphone for this exact reason should have clued him in.

Richard almost balked as she lowered them over his head, thinking that Susie was either going to play annoying nursery rhymes to toy with him or play some silly hypnosis files, which would do absolutely nothing other than heighten his defenses and ruin the experience. "Can you hear me?" he saw her mouth, and he shook his head. He really couldn't hear her, and he realized that that was the point. "How about now, is the volume good?" she asked, holding down the button and talking into the small microphone, and her voice came over crisp, clear, and not too loud. He nodded.

"Just one more thing," she said into the microphone, smiling. She put a soft sleep mask over his eyes, wrapped a long strip of fleece around his head and below his chin, tied the ends together, and further secured the whole thing snugly with another length of ribbon, leaving him completely blind, although he could probably have pushed the whole thing off even with his mittens on. She did up his hair as it should be, a pair of very little-girl pigtails to which she applied large bows of pink ribbon. Then, she lightly pushed him over onto the couch, lifting his legs so he laid prone, and then he had no idea where she was or what she was doing. Anxiety washed over him, an unbidden terror caused by sensory deprivation. What if someone broke in? Of course that was ridiculous, they were in the wealthy part of a nice suburb, he could have sworn he saw the county sheriff's car parked in a driveway that morning, and neither home invaders nor rioters had been seen in the area, ever. What if Susie wanted to hurt him? That was even more ridiculous - if she wanted to irreparably hurt him, she would have done it already and could do it with a handful of words. He wondered if he'd feel the prick of a needle and forcibly dismissed the idea from his mind. He had read way too many crappy stories.

Abruptly, something large and fluffy landed on his dress, and he yelped around his pacifier in surprise. Wait, what? Had Susie tossed a pillow at him? No, it was too heavy and moving around slightly, and he laughed through the pacifier and clumsily, blindly, and very gently petted the cat with his padded mitten.

Susie's voice came over the microphone, half speaking and half giggling. "That was amazing, I didn't plan that, I swear I didn't plan that. Looks like Whiskers is enjoying this too. Now get ready for your num-nums, baby." He thought she was going to pull out his pacifier, but instead she did something with the front of it, pushing something into it. Oh! That's what the hole was for! He suckled on the feeder pacifier tentatively, worried about what awful-tasting baby food was going to come down into it, and suddenly he tasted the same delicious banana milkshake that she'd made for him yesterday. He could have kicked himself; of course she wasn't going to feed him anything disgusting! More crappy stories, again.

Susie looked at her babified boyfriend, a lovely little teenage girlyboy who'd specifically asked in detail for her to make him cute and helpless, and a deep desire welled up within her, and then she realized that she was tormenting not just him but herself by waiting any longer. She'd originally intended to treat him to an all-day babying session with a final culmination of enjoyment, but seeing him like this was making all her fantasies come true, all of the wonderful dominant euphoria of having her very own beloved sissy that she'd been dreaming about, and it was him and she was desperately in love with him, and she absolutely could not wait another minute. Once he'd finished his milkshake, she popped out the tube and popped the pacifier cap back on. "You told them that I was a princess, without even being asked to," she said, and he expected a spanking. Instead, she said "That deserves a reward," gently moved her cat, guided him to the floor mittens-first, and tugged on his reins to let him know which way to crawl.

Richard eagerly let himself be led like the precious, innocent, helpless baby he felt like, and suddenly he felt something wet tickling his cheek, and the tug on the reins stopped as the tickling continued to his nose and other cheek. Her cat again! Richard laughed a bit through the pacifier at the cat's licking, knowing that Susie must have been giggling like mad even if he couldn't hear her, and the cat stopped after a few seconds and she tugged him forward again. Then she tugged straight up. Up? He tentatively lifted a mitten and found it on a step. then started crawling upstairs at her direction. He would have crawled over Lego to get where they were going.

There was some more tugging forward, and then she paused for a moment and carefully guided him around a corner, and then she tugged up again, lifting his arm to the soft mattress that he climbed up on, feeling the towels over the sheets. 'What are we gonna do on the bed, Susie-hime?' he thought to himself jokingly, as she laid him on his back, pulled down the diaper cover, untied and pulled down his plastic pants, and carefully untaped his diaper so as not to waste it. Something warm and wet enveloped his solid penis, and at first he thought it was her mouth, and then he felt a slight bit of resistance go pop and realized that it was definitely not her mouth.

She rode him cowgirl for fifteen minutes. He couldn't so much as hear the bed squeaking, nor any sounds she was making. All he could do was feel her, smell her. That sensation, of her bouncing up and down on him, was his whole world. There was nothing else in his senses, no distractions, no worries, no other thoughts in his mind. There was only his princess and how much he desperately loved her, needed her. He felt her vaginal muscles sharply clench on him more than once, her body shuddering repeatedly, and then pure pleasure overwhelmed him and he came like a firehose, her muscles squeezing again as he made a muffled noise through his pacifier. Slowly, gently, she leaned down and cuddled him with his deflating dick still inside her. She kissed him on both his cheeks and then one right on his pacifier. She held him like that for a little while, and then she re-taped up his diaper and pulled his plastic pants back up, and continued to embrace him, and he hugged her back, blindly and awkwardly. That had been the most intense experience of any kind that he'd ever had in his life, and it slowly faded into a deep sensation of joy and complete devotion.

Had he just really...? Had he just, had she just...? They'd just completely taken each other's virginities, with him as her completely helpless sissy baby pet. If someone had told him last week that he was going to have sex with a modern princess after she'd put him in ribbon-tied baby bondage, he wouldn't have believed it, and yet there he was, the very willing property of a girl who knew exactly what to do with him. He knew that he couldn't stay this helpless forever, that she'd have to let him out of the baby stuff eventually, but he would always be wearing it in his soul. He would do anything to keep his princess happily holding his reins, and if something got between them, he would annihilate it with every ounce of crushing power he could summon up.

Susie looked at his prone body, lightly stroking the reins over his short dress. She'd crossed the Rubicon, there. Her father had given her a lot of lectures on monogamy that she'd taken to heart, that she had to find Mr. Right and stick with him or else wind up living a life of misery, and she'd decisively found Mr. Right For Her before she was even out of high school. He was a boy, and she wouldn't ever want to change that - after what he'd done inside her, she definitely would never want to change that! He had some truly serious abilities, especially for his age, and she wanted to see those abilities honed and amplified because that was what was best for him. But his core, everything his masculinity and intelligence was protecting, was a wholly innocent little sissy who wanted nothing more than to be cute and taken care of, eager to please his princess for the affection she would show him. She wanted to give him that affection for as long as they lived. She knew the statistics on teenage relationships, knew that they were 'supposed' to break up at some point simply due to their age, and she was determined to beat the odds. She had his loyalty, his trust, a plan, and if it came down to it, an enormous sum of money at her disposal even before she'd need to directly ask her father.

She put his diaper back on and pulled up the plastic pants and diaper cover, and she laid there, holding him, playing with his pigtails occasionally. He'd been mostly aroused all day so he hadn't peed since the previous night, and he let the warm urine flow into the thick diaper. She nearly fell asleep with her head on his dress, her cheek resting on a strap of his reins. It wasn't just that she was exhausted from bouncing up and down on him. She had actually been up late, testing things, working on things, before she'd gone to bed where she'd had a hard time falling asleep. Exchanging chains for ribbons had taken her all of ten minutes, more than half of which was spent on carefully popping stitches without damaging the gear, but it had taken her a while to make sure that the headphones would do everything she needed them to do - including charge up! - and she would never apply such headphones or any bondage gear to him without first testing it on herself. She knew that being blinded and deafened could be scary, because she'd tried it out last night. Maybe she'd let him know that, one day. Maybe she'd put things like that on and dominate him in a different way, commanding her sissy, submissive fiance (as she was already thinking of him) to take care of a princess who couldn't physically take care of herself. But that was for later. Today, he was her baby.

But she needed a bath and so did he, so she tugged on his reins and guided him mittens-first back onto the carpet, and he crawled down the hallway and then around another corner and onto a tile floor that mildly annoyed his knees. She was about to untie him, then she realized that she had to use the toilet and didn't want him seeing that just then. She pulled him next to the toilet, and she squatted down, using him as a footrest because it seemed like an appropriately domme thing to do. He quickly grasped what she was doing, feeling her feet on his sissy dress, and didn't mind at all, obediently staying on his mittens and knees until she was done.

There was a brief pause and he felt her start tugging at the stuff she'd wrapped around his head. Wait, she was letting him out already? He was a bit disappointed before she pulled the headphones off and heard the unmistakable sound of bath water. Ah. Yes, they had gotten kind of sweaty. And there she was in front of him, stark naked, with him kneeling before her.

"I love you, Your Highness," he said, looking up at her from his knees, as soon as she pulled the pacifier from his mouth.

"I love you too, Ricky," she said, kissing him on the forehead, and took the rest of the stuff off him. "Oh my, looks like somebody couldn't keep his diaper dry. Are you a baby who belongs in diapers, Ricky?"

"I'm a baby who belongs in diapers, Your Highness," he said, nodding as she swiftly unbraided his hair for the tub. Whether or not he could physically hold his urine was beside the point. He was her baby, so he belonged in diapers.

"Then I'll just have to keep you in them as much as I can," she replied. "But right now, you're a stinky baby. In." 'Climb in the hot tub with me' was another one of those commands that any teenage girl could give her boyfriend, and Susie pressed some buttons, the bubbles came on, and Richard realized that he was cuddling with her in a real Jacuzzi.

"Well, was it everything you jacked off to?" Susie teased him.

Smiling, he replied, "It was better than anything I dreamed, but I haven't jerked off since I met you." Susie was surprised, although it did explain his performance and the fact that she still felt a little bit sticky inside. She'd considered ordering him not to masturbate, but from what she knew of teenage boys, it would have been horribly cruel. She wondered how long he could go without it before he couldn't take it anymore and bailed, but she had no intentions of finding out.

"You are such a good boy," she told him, splashing a bit in the hot tub as she hugged and kissed him. She used a fluffy washcloth to wipe his face and body, and he did the same thing for his princess, being very careful with her skin, paying careful attention to all her parts. He felt another urge in his guts. "How do you feel about poopy diapers?" he asked her quietly after he was done.

She scrunched her face in disgust. "Ugh. If you have to go to the toilet now, just go, Ricky." He obeyed immediately, unleasing a wet fart of all three states of matter into the bowl, and she giggled loudly before coughing. "Air freshener! I'm not kidding!" she shouted, pointing, and he Febrezed the room before sitting back down on the toilet to evacuate himself further. "Tomorrow, you're cleaning this room first," she told him.

"Yes, Your Highness. I'm surprised you don't hire a maid service," he said from the toilet. "Before you met me," he continued, knowing what she was going to say next.

She laughed. "Dad really doesn't want anyone like that coming into the house. He thinks people like that will steal stuff."

"Then who set up the pool?" Richard asked, wiping his butt thoroughly.

"My aunt helped me," Susie replied as he stepped back into the hot tub with her. She kissed him lightly on the cheek. "I'm surprised you know it takes work. Most people think that pools are just always like that."

He smiled at her. "I'm just glad there's no pool boy coming over."

She laughed, somewhat pleased that he was so protective of her. "You are the only boy I want in my pool, Ricky." She kissed him again, this time on the lips. "Now dunk your head. You need a good shampooing." She washed his hair with her shampoo, and at her direction, he did the same thing for her, and they stepped out of the tub before they got wrinkly and started drying each other with large, fluffy towels. She handed him a hair dryer. "Medium setting, and do not get too close to it," she demanded, and he was careful in obeying, drying her hair carefully. "One last thing," she said, leading him to the sink. "Open wide." Confused, he obeyed, and she put a toothbrush in his mouth. She'd never brushed anyone else's teeth before, but she did a good job, making sure she got everywhere with the cinnamon-flavored toothpaste. As before, he did the same thing for her, trying to be abrasive on her teeth but not wanting to hurt her gums, doing her tongue the same way she'd done his. "There we go. Can't have my baby getting a cavity suckling on sweet stuff. And now for your braids. One day, you need to learn to do this yourself."

"Can I practice on you?" he asked, and she chuckled softly. "If it's me, I can't see what I'm doing!" The reversal of the mirror would have confused him even worse.

"All right, it's like this." She showed him by briefly braiding her own hair. "Each strand goes between the other two. One, two, three. Like that. You try."

He tried, as best he could, but what he wound up with was a mess, despite her hair being naturally silky and straight. She giggled at his clumsy efforts and he sighed. "I know what I'm supposed to do, my fingers just don't want to do it," he protested, untangling her hair. It looked so simple, and he was a ludicrously fast typist so there obviously wasn't anything physically wrong there, but he couldn't play the guitar, either.

"That's okay, baby. You don't need fingers today anyway." He obediently let her put his mittens back on him before she finished braiding his hair and tying it off with ribbons again. She put him back in his dress, pacifier, and reins, humming something he didn't recognize. "Oh, I left the spare diapers downstairs. You stay here and see how cute you are until I get back," she told him, and he did, looking in the mirror.

It was definitely him, him as a pretty little sissy baby, all precious and cute from the waist up. He preened in front of the mirror, putting his mittens over his face and making cute, coquettish, and dainty poses until she came back, holding a diaper and giggling. "That last pose, make it again, just for me," she told him, and he did, holding his mittens to his cheeks and bending over just a bit, making a kissy-face behind his buckled pacifier. She would have absolutely loved to take pictures, but he was a thirteen-year-old in baby bondage so that really wasn't a safe thing to do. "Okay, back to diapers for you," she told him, and he smiled and sat down on the tile floor so she could diaper him and put his booties back on. She lowered the headphones over his head, turned them on, and wrapped him up again, leading him out of the room. Abruptly, a jerk on his reins pulled him back. She pushed on him gently, putting him into a sitting position. What was she doing? Oh, right, the stairs. She held his reins tightly as he carefully scooted down the stairs butt-first, making sure not to put any weight on his feet.

He wondered if he'd be jumped on by her cat again, but that didn't happen. Instead, she led him back to the couch, leaning him against an armrest. "Five minutes, sweetie," she told him, and left him there. He waited in anticipation, wondering what she was going to get him. trying to keep calm. He suckled on his pacifier, immersing himself into his baby role, and abruptly an old radio program started playing in his ears, his biggest 'Wait, what?' of the day. He'd been expecting nursery rhymes or children's tunes, and what he got was a radio host from eighty years ago talking about a baby from Krypton. "I guess you can hear it and me?" he heard Susie say, and he nodded. "Sit up a little," she told him, snuggling herself under him and letting him lie back down on her. "Have you heard this one before?" He shook his head. "I've never heard it either." Oh. Duh. They were listening to the same thing. Why had he even considered that she'd want to inflict annoying crap on him, especially with him bound as he was?

He was in pure bliss for an indeterminate amount of time, never feeling more completely at peace with everything, not able to go anywhere or do anything and having no reason to want to, the only interruptions the occasional "Two minutes" or "Five minutes" from his princess, and she adjusted their positions a few times. Before he got thirsty, his princess attached plenty of pure water to his pacifier and let him suckle it all down. He had to pee a while later, but he was in his thick, crinkly diaper and that was what it was for. She changed the content of the radio show after a while - he didn't even remember how many episodes it was - and he laughed through his pacifier at an ad for Lucky Strikes and how doctors considered them to be the healthiest cigarettes on the market. Her cat interfered again, jumping up on both of them, but that was for Susie's attention and she went to feed the kitty some fish. "Five minutes," she told Richard again after a while, and when she came back, she hooked up his feeder pacifier and he suckled up... 'Huh.' It certainly was very high quality, and it was pleasantly warm. He tasted copious amounts of star anise and a lot of vegetables, all blended and cooked up in some sort of broth. It was definitely good food that had been through a blender, it was just very unfamiliar to his palate, and he suckled it all up slowly, not remotely sure what he was tasting.

Susie was glad that Richard was so relaxed, so happy. She'd been afraid that he'd safeword or just start taking things off because he couldn't take it anymore. Instead, he was genuinely, completely enjoying himself. She considered having sex with him again but she didn't feel like getting up either and decided to do that tomorrow. Eventually, she had to take the stuff off of him, and he blinked at the light as she removed the wrappings.

"Your Highness, what's wrong?" he asked her as she unstrapped his pacifier.

She smiled at him. "Ricky, it's almost six."

"Already?" It didn't feel like it. He felt like he had just laid down on the couch a couple of hours ago, if that.

She smiled and kissed him on the forehead. "You really were enjoying yourself. I'm sure we'll be able to do this again sometime."

"No matter how long it is, it's never enough," he said, smiling at her, abruptly remembering what he'd thought about before. "Oh yeah, do you have any goggles that go with the headphones? You have my hearing, so you should have my vision too," he suggested.

She smiled at him. "I'll get a headset just for you," she told him, smiling and kissing him. "I'm just so glad this wasn't scary for you."

"If you weren't there, it totally would have been," he told her as she pulled off his wet diaper. "Thanks for saying the times when I'd be alone. And for the delicious food." He would never tell her that he had actually been stupid enough to think that she would serve him something nasty. "Although I had no idea what that vegetable stuff was."

"That's all it really was, just a bunch of veggies I threw together," she said. "I made it before you got here, decided it was good, reheated it later."

A suspicion grew in his mind. "How much other stuff did you test before I got here?" He was thinking about the earphones in particular.

Susie winced just a bit. He was way too smart! She was going to tell him later and decided to tell him then. "All right, Ricky, you deserve to know. I don't want to do anything to you without first testing it on myself." Her smile grew wider. "And now that you've got that image in your mind, your mom's here," she said, pointing to the window and kissing him goodbye.

"I love you, Your Highness! See you tomorrow!" he said happily as he walked, almost skipped, to the door.

"I love you too, Ricky. Be here early, somebody has to do the chores," she told him, smiling, sighing as he left. Of course he had to leave at some point, but she didn't think it was fair, to either of them, that he ever had to leave.

"So, what did you do with her?" Heather asked pointedly as Richard stepped into the car.

"We had kinky bondage sex," the thirteen-year-old told his mother casually. She turned sharply to look at him, and he broke out laughing.

"To even know those words at your age... you didn't actually tie her up or anything, did you?" she asked seriously as she started driving.

"Mom, I swear. I didn't actually tie her up," he replied, solemnly and completely truthfully. "We spent most of the day cuddling and listening to old Superman radio shows, and she made me a banana milkshake and some vegetable soup."

"And you bathed as well."

"Yes, I was in her hot tub. She's got a real Jacuzzi."

"With her, I'm sure," she told him. "Don't deny it. I can smell her shampoo on you and your hair's been brushed. I know what you're up to." 'No, Mom,' he thought to himself, 'you really, really don't.' "Just don't make her parents angry."

"I'm not going to piss off her dad." He might be a mob boss, for one thing. "Her mom's gone, lung cancer."

"Oh! That's terrible," she replied. "But that also means he's single." she added lightly. A strangled GLURK bubbled out of Richard's throat before he realized that what she was implying would never happen. The man was fantastically rich, after all; there was no reason for him to settle for her. She laughed the same way he had. "See? Your mother can also tell jokes." Richard just worried whether the ultimate joke would be on him and Susie.

The only thing Susie had told the very curious Squad in the chat was that they had a very wonderful time, and Richard only echoed that sentiment. Heather's spaghetti wasn't terrible food, and he tried to enjoy it, knowing that he was still just thirteen and couldn't move in with his girlfriend forever. Zoe gave Richard a knowing smile and a nod at the dinner table, wishing that she lived closer to Leslie and very glad that Caroline was willing to drive them. She hadn't been home all day, either, but Richard did not later ask what she'd been doing with Leslie any more than she asked about him.

He had fantastic sleep that night.


	9. New Normal

Zoe thought about the phrase 'new normal', which she'd overheard on the news. Some, not all, parts of the country were being told to accept lockdowns as the 'new normal', with varying degrees of success. She had accepted her brother's 'new normal' state, and she didn't even blink when, wearing his jingling dress, he asked her to braid up his hair and make up his face so he'd look cute for his girlfriend. Her brother was a sissy, and that's just how he was. She just wished Caroline hadn't been working that day; chat was one thing, but she wanted her normal day to involve time with Leslie, not just for the awkward sex but for the close cuddling, the talking, the feeling of togetherness that Richard only had to walk a mile, in his pretty Mary Janes and jingling socks, to enjoy.

Richard took a familiar, paved path, fearing nothing in the mid-morning, smiling happily as he jingled along. He wondered how many people were watching him, how many despised him, how many envied him. A bicyclist was coming and he gave the man room to pass; instead, the man slowed to a stop eight feet away. "Hey, kid, did you lose a bet or something?" he asked with a look of real concern. Maybe he could tell that Richard was a male, but it wasn't like many females dressed like that, either.

The question was so on-the-nose that Richard felt obligated to give a real answer. "Sort of," he decided on. "I lost on purpose." He gave the cyclist a big smile, and abruptly, the man's expression turned from concerned to mirthful, and he laughed as he rode on his way. It wasn't clear whether he was laughing at him for wanting to dress that way, or laughing in relief that Richard wasn't being pressured into it. Probably both. Richard gave a sissy, wiggling-fingers wave that the man couldn't see and continued to walk along.

Knowing he was coming without even having to read the Squad chat, Susie waited patiently, sitting on the couch and watching videos. Right after letting Whiskers spend some time out of the house that morning, she had decided to leave the femdom chat she'd been in after reading some disturbing overnight messages. It wasn't good to spend time in a place like that if someone knew she was underage, even though the guy she'd used for delivery probably wasn't dumb enough to talk about that. (Then again, he had been loose-lipped enough to tell her about that business with the ten-year-olds...) But more importantly, the things they were advising each other - and her - to do were equal parts manipulative and outright vicious, many involving physical and/or chemical abuse, and she was also fairly sure that more than half of the supposed females were actually men describing their masochistic fantasies, and that was before all the insane findom shit. Straight to hell with all of them, she decided; she was not going to lose her dear Ricky by following malevolent advice. She wouldn't even tell him that she had been there at all.

The doorbell rang, and there he was, all pretty and cute and made up, and he curtsied to her with a jingle of bells and a big smile on his face, gently pushing Whiskers, who was rubbing against his calves. "Good morning, Your Highness," he said in as pretty a voice as he could. No, she was definitely not going to risk losing him.

"Why, good morning, Ricky," she said in her princess tone. She decided that she'd only break character that day if he broke it first - which was unlikely - or she absolutely had to. "You may enter." As soon as both her pets came in together, she closed and locked the door behind them, then without a hint of hesitation, she flipped up his pretty dress to see what he had on underneath. "And what are those?"

"My underwear," he admitted. "I don't have any more diapers at home. Please diaper me, Your Highness."

"Of course, sweetie. Lie down. Whiskers, out of the way." She shooed her cat from behind him, he set his glittery backpack to the side, and she diapered him right there on the carpet, sliding off his boxer shorts and putting on a diaper, plastic pants, and diaper cover while pretending to ignore his growing erection. "And what is in your backpack?"

"My rainbow boy clothes and sneakers, just in case." Even the knee-high boots were a little much if he was going to appear to be a mostly ordinary boy. "And my heels, too."

"Oh? And why did you bring those?" she asked with an imperious air.

"To help me take daintier steps, Your Highness," he replied submissively, clutching his hands in front of him.

"Such a good little maid! Put them on, and I will give you another reminder to be meticulous." As he unbuckled his Mary Janes and put his heels on, she retrieved ribbons from the table; two of them went onto his pigtails in big, floppy bows, but she tied the third around each of his ankles as she had before, leaving him eight inches of slack so that he could carefully climb stairs. "There. That will make sure you take your time doing your chores."

"Thank you, Your Highness. That will be a big help." He got up and gave her another, restricted, curtsey. "May I please clean your bathroom?"

"Bathrooms, plural, but you certainly may. Come along, and I'll show you how I've been doing it."

Richard gasped dramatically, theatrically holding his hand to his face. "Your Highness! You've had to do such things yourself?!" he asked in feigned horror as he jingled and minced behind her with his limited steps, trying to keep up as she led him up the stairs. The diaper and cover were pushing his legs apart while the ribbon kept his legs together, making his walking even more childish and clumsy.

"Yes, that's right. Good help was so hard to find," she replied with an exaggerated sigh.

"That's so terrible, Your Highness. I should be doing all these chores for you."

"You will soon enough, little maid. In time, I will show you how to do everything here."

The first thing he noticed was the pacifier gag sitting on the toilet, but she opened up the compartment under the sink, which held a pair of versatile cleaning gloves sat under the sink, as did a small bucket, three different sponges, and three powerful, concentrated cleaning compounds: one for tubs and sinks, one for tile, and one for metal. The bathrooms in Susie's house weren't just tile floors; they were tile walls as well. She pointed out what went where, and told him specifically to clean every surface, and once he understood and didn't have any questions, she reminded him that little maids didn't need to talk while they worked and strapped his pacifier in. She kissed him on his pacifier and left him to his housework in his restrained feet and jingly dress.

He noticed some spots on the mirror and realized that she hadn't specified what to do for glass, but the tile cleaner was labeled as also being used for that, so he started there, cleaning it thoroughly, making sure not to leave streaks and smiling behind his pacifier at his pretty reflection as he had before. He looked so cute! He opened up the medicine cabinet, and there was nothing in there but Susie's electric razor, so he set that down and used diluted tub cleaner for the inside of the cabinet as well. Then the sink, and then the faucets with the metal cleaner, making everything very shiny. He did the light fixtures and plugs very, very carefully, glad that he was wearing gloves. Then he turned his attention to the tub.

As he diligently worked, sitting on the edge of the hot tub and making sure to scrub away every last bit of grime, Richard didn't realize he was having second thoughts until he was well into the middle of having second thoughts. It wasn't the jingly dress, diaper, pacifier, high heels, or ankle ribbons that were doing it; it was the fact that she clearly intended to regularly command him to do real housework for the foreseeable future, particularly because he'd volunteered for it. He didn't have to keep to that, if he really didn't want to. He could just go get his boy clothes, take this stuff off, and tell her that he really couldn't do this anymore; hell, if he were so inclined, he could just go home and never talk to any of them about any of this ever again, even his sister. There was nothing, nothing at all, that could prevent him from simply giving up and going home, sex and relationships be damned. He recognized the feeling very well. He'd done such things before, on a much smaller scale. These flare-ups of unease and anxiety were part of what made him inclined to quit things and cut ties, although they had usually resulted in him simply not getting involved with anyone or anything to begin with.

But, then again, what would he have been doing otherwise as a thirteen-year-old in the summer, pandemic or no? Surfing the Internet, reading despicable tales and looking at vile images, real and unreal, that would only leave him with a bad taste in his mouth, hating both himself and the people responsible for them? Trying to make sense of the news, which was getting more surreal every day no matter who he listened to? Playing single-player video games in which he pretended to be wearing a pretty dress, when he was actually wearing one? He still usually played a couple hours of Starcraft every evening before bed, and he realized that, on average, he was getting more exercise as a sissy than he usually did as an ordinary boy! Most of his old habits had left him with nothing but a feeling of wasted time and important things left undone. His new ones were, at the very least, giving his girlfriend a cleaner house.

Moreover, she wanted him to do it and she was happy that he was doing it, and, for him, that was the most important thing in the world.

Holy crap, had he just been seriously considering going 'Fuck this shit I'm out', losing Susie and everything else important to him, over keeping her house clean - especially when she kept giving him everything he ever wanted?!

Mentally calling himself all sorts of names as he suckled on his pacifier, promising himself that she would never have any idea that such thoughts had entered his mind, Richard diligently continued to thoroughly scrub the grime off of Susie's hot tub - it only took a couple of wipes to get the surface sparkling like new - kneeling as he scrubbed so that his cute heels wouldn't scrape the inside of the tub, his bells rhythmically jingling with his back-and-forth motions. With his ankles kept so close together, he had to carefully scoot over the side of the tub, the bells on his socks jingling, but he retrieved the metal cleaner and proceeded to clean the faucets. The drain grate popped out, so he did both sides of that and then ran the pipe snake down that drain for good measure. The sink was easier, and the toilet wasn't difficult either, but then he realized that Susie had told him to clean the tiles with a sponge rather than a mop. He obediently did so, starting with the walls, his heels clacking against the tiles on the floor while his pretty dress jingled, going back and forth and making everything shiny. (He realized that the door was ajar and that Susie could hear him working.) He carefully cleaned the floor as well, wiping behind the toilet and being careful not to box himself in, as he was still crawling on his knees, the bells of his sissy dress brushing against the tile, smiling at a job well done.

Oh! Of course! He still had two more bathrooms to clean. He was so glad that Susie had such a big house. Sissies like him needed lots of housework to do, after all. Carefully carrying the cleaning supplies, he minced across the hall to the second upstairs bathroom, hearing the music of one of Susie's videos downstairs.

She heard the jingle of his bells as well. "Wait," she commanded him, and he obediently stood there, suckling on his pacifier and waiting for her to come up. "Let's see how good of a job you did." She led him back to the bathroom he had just finished cleaning, and she blinked in surprise. He had honestly done a very good job - he'd even done the inside of the medicine cabinet! He'd done as much of the tile walls as he could reach. Her original plan was to find some visible fault with what he did and then promise to punish him once he was done. But what was she going to do, yell at him for not touching the high ceiling? She had already resolved never to play the stupid dominant game of being pointlessly cruel to him over nothing. "You did wonderfully! If you keep going like this, there's definitely a reward in it for you," she said instead. 'Punishment' and 'reward', of course, were two roads that led to the same destination. She patted him on his diaper and he happily minced down the hall to the other bathroom.

The second bathroom was more difficult than the first. Almost no one had used it in a long while, and Susie had not been cleaning it. It wasn't gas-station filthy, and it was fortunately smaller, but even with the powerful chemical, the grime in the regular-sized bathtub required serious scrubbing with the rough side of the sponge to the point that his arms started to ache. He chuckled behind his pacifier at the idea that being a sissy was actually going to put muscle on him. The toilet was the same way, and he flushed dirty brown crud down multiple times as he worked, very glad he was wearing gloves. He realized that he had to... well, other boys would have said 'use the toilet' or 'go to the bathroom'. But he was wearing his pink, poofy diaper, so he used that instead.

To his relief, the third, downstairs bathroom was nearly spotless already and required very little work. As he finished up, he heard boiling water and smelled something cooking. Suckling on his pacifier, he curtsied to her and gestured to the simmering pot.

She giggled. "I don't need your help, we're just having rice with salmon. Go put the cleaning stuff away and then you can set the table." He obediently did so, carefully mincing back up and back down the stairs with the little steps that he was getting used to taking, then putting silverware and dishes next to two close-together dining room seats. He put the fish-laden rice into bowls for each of them and then brought out a pitcher of iced tea as well, and, complimenting him on what a good sissy he was, she unbuckled his pacifier so that he could eat.

"Your Highness, may I please have a pair of soft kneepads?" Richard asked as soon as it was out. This was a Rule 1 violation, but they were a ways past that.

"Oh, of course, Ricky. You're going to be spending a lot of time on your knees, and we wouldn't want them to be chafed. i'll see if we can get a pair next time we go out." He smiled at her.

They ate the delicious meal together, enjoying each other's company, and Susie simply reached under his jingly dress and felt his diaper under the cover and plastic pants. "Oh my. You're wet. You were in the middle of three different bathrooms and you still went in your diaper. Why did you do such a thing, Ricky?"

"Because I'm a baby who belongs in diapers, Your Highness."

"That's right, Ricky. I'm so glad you remembered." She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, and they finished their food, occasionally feeding each other bites.

"So, what's this reward you were talking about?" Richard asked once they were done eating.

"More chores, of course," she said haughtily. "Come along, sissy boy. Your chores are this way." She left the dirty dishes on the table. These particular chores had to be done immediately. He reached for his pacifier. "Ah-ah-ah, leave that there. These chores require the use of your mouth." She led him upstairs and into her bedroom, and it was the first time he'd actually seen it.

He'd almost expected it to be pink and girly, with lots of stuffed animals, but instead it was very tastefully decorated. The walls were hardwood paneling with intricate tapestries of landscape scenes across the walls. Books - not all of them in English - half-filled a bookshelf, and Richard was certain that she'd actually read them. An obviously expensive tower computer, complete with gamer chair, sat at the far wall, and he wondered if she was putting the GPU to good use. Although the blankets were royal purple rather than pink, the bed was the regal four-poster kind he had envisioned, and it was, again, covered in towels.

"My toes need to be cleaned, Ricky," she told him, turning up her nose in a haughty expression. "And do not wear your heels on my bed." He obediently took them off as she removed her socks. She placed her toes to his face, giving him a good look at his task. She did not use nail polish; instead, her toes were kept neatly and regularly trimmed. He obediently licked and sucked on her toes, licking all the imagined grime off them thoroughly, tasting her sweat and feeling very enjoyably subservient, kissing her feet multiple times in the process.

"I'm sure you love the taste, but you need something better to suckle on," she told him once her toes had been lightly covered with his saliva. "Up here, Ricky. Your next chore is to suckle on Mommy's breasts." Of course, Susie wasn't actually lactating, but he obediently suckled on her nipple anyway, licking a little bit, remembering to be gentle, pretending he was teasing milk out. She petted his pigtails and kissed him on top of his head, and after a little while, she moved him to her other breast.

She pulled off her skirt and panties, then pulled down his plastic pants and diaper cover and untaped his wet diaper. He wasn't just wet; he was also definitely sweaty down there from a combination of triple layers and hard work, his balls hanging very loose. She thoroughly wiped him down with a towel. "Your next chore is to fuck me," she said simply. Of all the commands that a teenage girl could give her boyfriend, that was the undisputed emperor of them all, and after so much teasing and contact, he was definitely ready to go.

It was the missionary position, a nominally dominant position even though his legs were still tied with ribbons, as he was on top of her, thrusting for the first time in his life as she clenched around him and they gasped together. She wrapped her legs around him and they kissed passionately and repeatedly, lost in each other. She came, and he heard that deep moan for the first time, and he came as well, and he kissed her once more and nearly collapsed on top of her.

Richard resolved that from then on, his paranoia and caution would be entirely put to work in strengthening their relationship instead. If that turned out to be a mistake, there was no good future for him after that point anyway; he figured that, if anything went south after this, he actually would go 'Fuck this shit, I'm out' and end his own life.

Susie almost laughed in his embrace, comparing her experience to the nonsense she had read that morning. She had no patience for anything relating to some sort of imagined sexual hierarchy. Alpha males, cuckolded husbands, full-time maids in chastity? Evil bullshit, all of it. His place was right where he was, with her ribbons around his ankles and in his pigtailed hair, smelling of male sweat and bathroom cleaners. Well, okay, the smells could be nixed, and her toes were a little bit sticky too. "Bath time," she told him, undoing his pigtails, gently pushing him off of her, and sitting up to untie his ankle ribbons, setting them and his diaper coverings on the bed.

They bathed together as they had before, washing each other in the very clean tub. She noticed that Richard was looser this time, easier, less subtly pent-up. He was getting used to this, and it was definitely something he could get used to. "Ricky, do you want to keep doing this forever?" Susie asked him, very seriously with no roleplay in her voice.

It was like she was reading his mind! "With you, yes, I really do," he replied. "I mean, I'll have to be a regular boy sometimes, but I really love being your sissy." She nodded. A thought he hadn't considered entered his mind. "Do you want to keep doing this forever, too?"

She kissed him on the lips. "Of course I do." He heard a different sort of 'I do' in that and realized that what he had was, barring some horrific tragedy, actually forever. He was completely, even the scary, reticient, combative, and dangerous parts of himself, in love with her.

When they were done bathing, drying, and brushing each other's teeth again, she asked him if he knew how to put his hair into pigtails by himself yet.

"I've been practicing," he said, smiling, showing her how he was doing it last night. She giggled. She'd gone through her own pigtails phase, when her mother was still alive, and his attempt looked much like her first few tries before she'd really gotten it down. She considered telling him to braid his own pigtails anyway, even if they were too loose and poorly done, because that would make him look even more like a little girl in its own way, but babies had their hair done by their caregivers so she did them for him again, putting the ribbons back on his pigtails after she'd completely redressed him, his dress jingling once more, light, sweet makeup on his face, a fresh diaper on his groin, her ribbons back on his ankles just under the bells on his socks, and his heels back on his feet. He minced back downstairs to do the dishes, and she found a few things for them to watch together, and as they watched, she texted the Squad about what a good helper he was and how he'd done the bathrooms. Richard blushed but didn't protest. It wasn't like they didn't already know he was a sissy. Time flew again, and eventually Richard had to start going home before his mom did, and so he got up with a kiss.

"Is that how you're going out? In your high heels with my ribbon around your ankles?" Susie asked him, giggling.

"I would love to, Your Highness, but I think I would get in trouble if I did."

"Unfortunately, you would. Turn around, keep your knees straight, and take them off yourself," she commanded him. This basically made him touch his toes, stretching his legs and providing her with a wonderful view of his thickly padded bottom, and he fully expected her to spank it. Instead, she patted it lightly, causing a loud crinkle. "Hmmm... we shall leave the covers here and you may simply wear your diaper home." Judging from all the sweat earlier, things had been getting too warm down there for him. "Your other underwear is in your backpack with the rest of your..." She feigned an aristocratic shudder and a tone of disdain. "...boy clothes." She helped him step out of the plastic pants and diaper cover, taking them and the ankle ribbons from him, and he swapped his heels for his Mary Janes, which were right where he'd left them. Putting his heels into his backpack, he noticed an extra diaper in there as well. "Now go and skip along home, little maid."

Purse and backpack on, he curtsied to her with a melodious jingle. "Yes, Your Highness. Thank you for letting me do your chores!"

"You are very welcome. Fear not; I shall need your services again." And again, and again, and again, Susie knew, feeling a deep glee in her heart of owning something utterly priceless. No one online, in that abandoned femdom chat nor any other, knew what she had, nor would they. She watched, with an enormous smile on her face, as he took her command literally and skipped down the street in the sunny afternoon without a care in the world, just like the precious little girl he looked like.

He knew for sure, then, that was his daily life, as long as her father wasn't home and his mother was at work. He started thinking that he'd be her sissy just for the summer, but he knew better, as his school was almost certainly going fully online this year; he'd have to ask about hers, as she certainly had never set foot inside a public school. If he was trapped, he never, ever wanted to be rescued, he thought to himself as his bells told the whole neighborhood that there was a pretty little girly boy skipping down the path.

Changing into a shirt and pants for his mother's arrival, barely remembering to wash off the makeup and undo his pigtails, he felt like a quick game of competitive Starcraft, and he burst out laughing after he'd ground his opponent down into the dirt, winning himself a place in the Master league. Oh, if only that poor soul had known what had just happened and who he'd just lost to!

After dinner with his mother, who was glad her children were staying out of trouble - and his sister, who knew better - he finished up his Niven, practiced his pigtails until he got frustrated, and climbed into bed, dreaming of what tomorrow would bring.


	10. Team Carry

Richard got the text from Susie half an hour after his mother had gone to work: 'Ricky, what are you doing?'

'The wash,' he texted back. 'And some other chores. :)' He actually was, again. His sister was helping him - she didn't feel right making him do everything around the house - but of course he was wearing his housewife dress and four-inch heels, and he had been washing his correctly separated girly clothes like a good sissy.

'Oh? Your own chores? When will you be here to do mine, pretty little servant boy? :heart:'

He was a little bit confused. 'Do you think I'd have time before Caroline picks us up?'

There was a minute's pause, and then the reply came back: 'Ricky, you will never, ever tell anyone that I completely forgot about that.'

He nodded. He'd forgotten stuff before, too. 'Yes, Your Highness. :)' He was just glad it was a quickly cleared-up misunderstanding. The very last thing he wanted was a genuine tug-of-war between different people wanting his time, especially Zoe and Susie, and he put down his phone because his housewife dress didn't have any pockets. He was in the middle of cleaning out the refrigerator when Zoe handed him his phone, as Caroline was talking to him in the chat.

[10:02 AM] Caroline: ricky, dont bring any girl clothes today, just your white sneakers.  
[10:03 AM] Richard: Do you mean the flats or heels?  
[10:03 AM] Caroline: flats for where we are going!  
[10:03 AM] Caroline: also, everyone, high of 90 today, prepare to sweat  
[10:05 AM] Leslie: I 100% love how he has to ask LMFAO  
[10:05 AM] Zoe: For him, it's a valid question!  
[10:05 AM] Leslie: That's what's so funnnnyyyy!! :laughing:  
[10:06 AM] Caroline: actually leslie i dont mean to pick on you but does your wheelchair have any bigger tires?  
[10:07 AM] Leslie: I think so. We've never used them. I'll have to ask Dad where they are. Are we going somewhere muddy?  
[10:07 AM] Caroline: it can get kinda dirty/sloppy there yeah  
[10:08 AM] Caroline: its not that far, like 40 minute drive, big frolfing course  
[10:08 AM] Caroline: you all good with that?  
[10:09 AM] Zoe: 40 minutes isn't a problem here, just as long as we can still call mom.  
[10:09 AM] Leslie: I'll be okay.  
[10:10 AM] Susie: As long as we're back before nightfall lol!  
[10:10 AM] Caroline: cool beans

He got all the chores done, food back in its rightful places after he was done scrubbing out the fridge, before Caroline arrived. She'd stopped to pick up Zoe and Richard before she went to pick up Susie, and that was fortunate for him because he got to see what happened next.

Holding something in her hands, wearing a dark midriff-baring top and thigh-length skirt over her purple bikini, Susie took the seat behind Richard and reached forward to hand over her present. "Here you go, Caroline, we have no need of these," she said, handing the older girl a length of locked-together chains, the keys in each of the locks.

"What. Holy. Shit. Where did you-- was this from that box?!" Caroline blurted out, while Leslie and Zoe stared, incredulously.

"That's still for Ricky to tell you if he chooses, but these are yours if you want them."

"We didn't use them," Richard quickly added. "They were literally never used for their original purpose."

"Yeah, but what could they possibly have been... you know what, no. I already know the answer. Was it cute, Susie? The stuff you didn't lock him into?"

"It was very cute," Richard answered for her, and Caroline nodded. "And yes, restrictive. And that's all I'll say, okay?" Leslie started giggling, and Zoe followed, and Caroline was going to bring something related up before they went swimming, but she decided not to. Later. It'd sound like an accusation if she said it just then, and she didn't trust herself not to be a bitch about anything that day. Instead, she accepted the gift, and Richard caught a glimpse of a familiar red hat in the car's central compartment before she tossed the chains in there and slammed the lid closed.

They arrived at the Y a few minutes early, as Caroline had planned. Richard never really had a lot of patience for routines, in general. He absolutely hated school, watching the clock in his classes, and he was unapologetically grateful to the pandemic for finally pulling him out of there, at least for the year. But this new routine, the routine of being picked up by Caroline, driven to the local YMCA, and swimming with his girlfriend for an hour - that was a routine he was very much enjoying. A car ride with the girl he loved. A session of swimming, in which he was increasingly able to keep up with her every time he went, especially as the hour came to a close. And then the culmination, the trip to the bathroom in which the girls determined what he would wear until he had to go back to his mother, and so he said "And here's the last part of the bi-weekly fun routine" as soon as he stepped in there with them.

"I'm never going to get tired of this either," Caroline replied as she pulled out what she'd planned and proceeded to dress him in it while Zoe did his hair - using the ribbons he'd brought - and Susie diapered him. (There was no makeup on any of them; they would have sweated it off.) The clothes had been out in the front of a yard sale that Caroline had happened to pass, noticing that they happened to be substantially larger than normal for clothes of that kind. She'd drove around the block to go back there, and understood what was going on as soon as she saw the obese girl who had grown out of them. Of course, the outfit didn't quite fit him in the way the designers intended, as it roughly matched his breadth and width but not his height. The shirt, with its pattern of pink and white hearts over darker pink, was fine, as the skirtall covered the area below it. The skirtall, made of lavender denim with a big, embroidered pink heart in the center, had reached to the knees of the girl it was designed for. On Richard, it was slightly above his mid-thigh. Bending over would show his diaper to everyone behind him.

Caroline nodded and smiled at him, having known it'd be like this when she bought it. He smiled back. He might have spoken up, said that this was too short on him, but it looked incredibly cute and he absolutely loved it. He just wished one of them had brought matching socks. Oh well, the white ones were okay too.

They left the bathroom and were face-to-face with Mindy, Leslie next to her in her wheelchair wearing a 'nothing I could do' expression. The woman had simply had to go to the bathroom, and she realized what was going on as soon as she saw the group, and there was two seconds of awkward silence.

"Sssssssh," Leslie abruptly started doing, putting her finger to her lips. Instead of an explanation, Caroline, Zoe, Susie, and Richard all started doing the same thing.

Mindy laughed out loud. As a physical therapist whose specialty was teenagers, she'd thought she'd seen it all, and for a few seconds, she just didn't know what to make of this. She actually was a mandatory reporter, but this decisively wasn't abusive, as everyone involved - including the boy who'd just been dressed up like a girl - was actively motioning her to keep quiet about it with nervous, conspiratorial smiles behind their pursed, shushing lips. What was she going to do? Lose the trust of her teenage client and get a bunch of other kids in trouble for fooling around with crossdressing? Why? For what purpose? For whose benefit? She made the same finger-over-lips gesture, nodding. "I saw nothing," she whispered, and walked past them to use the bathroom as she'd intended. They all breathed a sigh of relief and headed for the back door.

"Leslie, I thought you said no one knew about that bathroom," Caroline said irritably.

"Yeah, she's the one who told me about it," Leslie replied. "Before I knew you, she changed me back there," she whispered. That had been before the pandemic, on weekends and late afternoons rather than on what used to be school days, and the women's locker room had been significantly more crowded. Caroline thought of saying something sharp in response but made herself not do that. Maybe she could get through the day without needing to tell them what was going on with her.

"Well, now she's in on it," Caroline replied. "Leslie, be straight with me, here. Are we going to have to worry about this? Because I don't want it to be 'oh, cool, she knows and won't tell,' and then suddenly one day it's 'oh, there's Ricky's mom, oh hey, did you know...?'"

"She's not going to tell, Caroline," Leslie replied, trying to talk in as much of a normal voice as possible despite how much it made her chest hurt, particularly after swimming for an hour. "She told me that the only reason she ever wants to make me mad is to make me work harder, and that wouldn't be it. Especially now, she gets to be the first physical therapist to help with the new treatment."

"Put yourself in her shoes, Caroline," Zoe suggested. "Would you screw that up just because you saw a boy in a skirtall?"

"Believe me, if I were in other people's shoes, the world would look a lot different," Caroline replied. "All right, I believe she's sane. That actually kinda reminds me," she said. "Wait, hold up, let's get everyone in the car and then I'll tell you." Getting Leslie out of the wheelchair and into the car was a necessary sort of routine, one that Richard still didn't partake in.

"As I was saying," Caroline continued in a collegiate, speaker tone after making sure the doors were closed and that no one had opened a window (no one would, not with the AC going on a hot day), "I have seen some rather INsane things relating to this, ah, activity that we have been doing with our dear Ricky here." Richard looked unamused. Had she seriously been...? "In particular, I have seen the, ah, desires of many people who enjoy the same sorts of things that he enjoys."

Oh, crap, she had been! "Big mistake, Caroline!" Richard interjected, turning to look at her.

Caroline dropped the faux voice. "Yeah, believe me, I know. Anyway, one of the most common fantasies is, 'Oh no, I am a child being feminized by this domineering woman or all these evil girls, and I cannot do anything about it, and no one will help me because I live in a hell-world where everyone's in on it and no one ever intervenes.' You don't get to even pretend that one, Ricky, you never get to pull the whole 'it's not my fault, they did it to me' schtick. That kind of shit might actually happen to boys, very rarely, but it sure as hell doesn't happen to you." She pointed at him sharply before putting both hands back on the wheel. He just nodded, knowing exactly what she was talking about. She was telling the others what he was never going to tell them about.

Zoe frowned a bit. "How often does anyone even try to do that to boys? I mean, there was that psycho babysitter Susie was talking about, and then there was that kid in Franklin's store..."

"There's another one I know about," Richard said. "There was a kid who wet the bed at night, so his mother and her landlord punished him by putting him outside in a princess dress. In the end, he discovered his girl side and lived happily everNO ACTUALLY the adults both went to jail for felony child abuse and the kid went to his grandma. He was traumatized as fuck." He couldn't even imagine how many nightmares that kid must have had. "This was on a news site, I can find it if you want," he said, reaching into his skirtall's pocket but deciding that he didn't want to prove that this *actually happened* unless any of them asked. Besides, the article didn't tell him what he was most curious about: if those people had been taking the wrong sorts of fantasies seriously before reality met them.

"Her landlord?" Zoe asked, confused.

"I don't know, it's what the news site said. Maybe halfway her boyfriend or something."

"Sounds like something Mom's last boyfriend would do," Zoe said. "Remember? The one who hit me?"

"Oh my God, why did you remind me of that?" Richard rhetorically asked, rolling his head back. "I was in second grade or something. I'm still so glad you told and that she believed us. If Mom would have stayed with that guy..."

"Can we please stop talking about this stuff?" Leslie asked quietly.

"I kind of want to know the story," Susie said.

"There is no story," Zoe replied. "He hit me and I told Mom and Ricky backed me up and she threw him out and never found another boyfriend again. The end."

"Yeah, well, guess who she was joking about making her boyfriend a couple days ago? Susie's dad," Richard changed the subject with, chuckling and getting back some incredulous laughter.

"No, no, relax, that would never actually happen," Susie said, laughing but then getting serious. "Dad won't ever have a relationship again. He doesn't want to dilute our inheritance. He's got this whole thing about it. He'll be in love with Mom until he dies."

"It's just so sad," Zoe said. "He loves your mom so much and she got... that."

"Yeah. Fuck cancer," Susie quietly replied.

"And fuck Duchenne's, too," Zoe added. "Two more weeks," she said, putting her arm around her disabled girlfriend. Two more weeks, for a therapy that might have been delayed indefinitely if Richard hadn't intervened. It wasn't just the bad that could have such long-lasting repercussions, Richard realized. The good could as well.

"And, while we're at it, fuck drive-thru only," Caroline lamented, managing to get into the back of a very long line of cars without the rear bumper sticking out into the street. "Mid-90s today and get to idle and run the AC the whole time. Hate this shit. Sorry for the wait. It's still worth it."

"Isn't gas cheap now?" Leslie asked.

"Yeah, it wastes gas, but the problem's the heat," Caroline replied. "Wears things down, burns the oil. And the worst part is, poor Ricky here doesn't get to show off his outfit to everyone inside." They laughed, and Susie was about to say something, but Caroline kept going. "So what does everyone want?"

"Just a burger, no fries, and just with vegetables, no pickles." Leslie said. The salt wasn't good for her. "And ice water."

"Plain double cheeseburger, fries, lemonade," Zoe said. "It's been so long since I've ate a burger."

"Just a plain burger, fries, and Coke," Richard said. "Oh yeah, plain with bacon."

"Give me the same as Ricky," Susie added. "I don't like all the stuff they put on burgers."

Caroline looked around the car with exaggerated offense on her face. "Oh my God. You guys. Plain. Plain. Plain. Leslie, I can understand, but I am seriously the only person in this car who eats an everything burger like a normal person. You all deserve each other, and I'm not even talking about his girl clothes or whatever you didn't use these for," she said, pointing to the chains in the central compartment.

"We do, and you were wrong about him not showing off his outfit," Susie told her. "Hey Ricky, go skip around the block so everyone in line can see you," she continued, and Richard immediately took off his seat belt.

"Oh my fucking God," Caroline started, but he had already stepped out the door, closing it and then skipping around the burger joint in his ribboned pigtails and pretty skirtall outfit, against the direction of traffic so everyone who cared to look could see his smiling face. He didn't even look at the people in the cars to see if they were looking at him. Did they think he was doing it on a dare? Were they worried about him? Did they think he was cute? Did any of them glimpse the white between his legs, and how many of those knew it was a diaper? (He doubted that any of them saw it. They didn't have the viewing angle.) He didn't know and only cared a little bit, and as he stepped back into the passenger's seat - the car had only moved a single spot forward - he heard the tail end of Caroline's sentence.

"-with great responsibility!" She turned to him. "Ricky, she can just tell you to do things like that and you'll do them."

"Yeah, pretty much," Richard said, smiling and nodding.

"It's not something he has a problem with, Caroline. I'm not going to abuse him, and he knows it," Susie said firmly.

Richard nodded. "Caroline, it's like you were saying before, it's not like I didn't want to do it," he admitted. He very much enjoyed showing off his pretty clothes, especially in an indirect way that probably wouldn't involve any awkward or embarrassing conversations, and especially when Susie told him to do it.

Caroline threw up her hands. "My verdict stands. You deserve each other."

Zoe laughed. "You know that's nowhere near the worst thing he's done, right? You know he goes back and forth to Susie's house in a jingling dress."

"I thought you were kidding. Oh my God. No offense, but you're all crazy, and the person who bought his outfit is crazy too," Caroline said.

"That's not fair to Leslie," Zoe started pointedly. "She never really-"

"Wait," Leslie said. "Ricky, if this treatment works, I want to go skipping with you. We can be twinsies." Richard smiled and agreed, Caroline chuckled, and Zoe looked surprised. Caroline had been fair to her after all.

"Daaaaw. All right, I'll let you borrow him," Susie said with a big smile, getting laughter in response. They made it to the ordering window and Caroline ordered what they had all asked for - combining their orders of fries into a large, shared bucket - plus a stacked double burger and a large Coke for herself. Caroline almost offered to pay, but Susie overrode her with a "Rule 1" and handed her two twenties. For a brief moment, Caroline looked upset and indignant, but forcibly controlled herself.

"Caroline, is something wrong?" Leslie asked quietly.

Damn it, they knew, of course they could figure out something was wrong with her, and Caroline took a sharp breath and forced herself to say the words she'd memorized. "I get really bad PMS, it makes me a total bitch, and I'm sorry I get like this." It had taken quite a few bad months for her to recognize what the problem was and even more to get enough control to stop blaming other people when it struck. It was embarrassing to admit, but having her friends think that she was just being a bitch for no reason was a good way to lose them. "Can't blame you for not wanting to be a girl, Ricky. You don't need to deal with this shit!" she spat out, letting her bottled emotions loose.

"I don't either," Leslie reminded them, "but I used to get roid rage."

Zoe was startled and confused. "Did you just say... ohhhhh. Right." She understood at the same time her brother did.

"What's roid rage?" Susie asked.

"Muscle-building steroids can give you mood swings," Leslie explained. "They changed my prescription so I don't get it anymore. Dad thought it was all just from my birth parents at first."

It was finally their turn to drive up to the window, and the pimply-faced cashier was deeply smiling at Richard as he handed Caroline the bags of food. Smiling back, Richard wondered, again, if the teenager thought he was cute and in what way he thought he was cute.

"You saw him checking you out," Caroline pointed out as she drove to a parking spot. She did not want to eat and drive at the same time, and she didn't want bumps or turns spilling anyone's food or drink in her car either. "I wouldn't have been surprised if he'd asked for your number." General giggling filled the car.

"You know, this is actually kind of a dickish thing to do to people," Richard said. "Some of them think I'm a teenage girl who's dressing cute and skipping around because she wants to be asked out, but surprise! I'm a trap!" He didn't get as much laughter as he was expecting and took a bite of his plain burger - which actually was really good, considerably better than the larger chains - eating over the paper bag and napkins on his lap so as not to get food all over his pretty skirtall or Caroline's car.

"Any boy who asks random girls out takes his fucking chances," Caroline said firmly. "They're the ones rolling the dice, they don't get to complain when it comes up snake." There was a lot more laughter.

"Or he knows Ricky's a boy and he's gay," Zoe said after swallowing a bite of burger. "Is there such a thing as a double trap?"

"He rolls his dice, he takes his chances," Caroline said with emphasis. "I don't do dice rolling and neither do any of you."

"But we all did get really lucky," Zoe pointed out.

"That's called being in the right place at the right time," Caroline said before taking a big bite. "Which, yeah, is kind of the same thing." She almost said how unfair it was, how they all got to have who they wanted while she had to wait, but she knew it was just the PMS talking and clamped down on it.

The girls in the back started a conversation on the way to the frolfing course, and Richard had no idea how it started, and at no point in it did he have any idea what they were talking about. Occasionally, they would talk about characters he vaguely recognized, and he almost started following some of it, but then one of them - often his sister - would bring up some comparison to something else and he would be completely lost again. The worst part was that it was almost like a normal conversation, except it might as well have been conducted in a foreign language, and what was more, Susie wasn't quite on the same wavelength as Leslie and Zoe, and Richard could not even tell if they were actually communicating or if they were simply gabbing about basically nothing. Was this a girl thing? Should he even ask? He tried to get into their mindset, to become part of the conversation, and he just couldn't.

"And I thought you were the weird one," Caroline told Richard quietly, as Zoe was explaining the plot of something based on something else based on something else Richard only vaguely recognized. "How do they get so deep into that stuff?"

"It's probably better than the shit we've been looking at," he replied wryly, and she didn't disagree.

Zoe and Richard put on sunblock in the car before they reached their destination, a very out-of-the-way park near a lake, and Caroline parked next to the bathroom and immediately ran towards it, trying the door, her eyes opening wide. Then, to everyone's surprise, she ran to the men's room. Locked as well. Her mouth moved, and while they couldn't read her lips, her unspoken words were surely of the four-letter variety.

She ran back to the car. "Leslie, I need a diaper and a couple of wipes," she said immediately.

"They won't fit you," Leslie replied.

"It doesn't need to fit me, I'm not really putting it on, just going into it," she replied, and she snatched the items out of Leslie's hands before running to the bathroom area, going behind a concrete barrier where none of the others could see, and Zoe started doing the work of helping Leslie out of the car.

A few minutes later, Caroline came out from behind the barrier with a pile of dirty plastic in her hand and a serious scowl along with a deep-red blush. Richard suddenly grasped why Leslie wanted to have a diaper buddy. Being the gross one, singled out, was not something girls liked to do, and Caroline was actually humiliated by this. "Caroline, you're not gross, people need to poop," Richard said quickly. "There's nobody here, and a boy would have just used a plastic bag and maybe a leaf." Zoe was visibly grossed out at him but didn't say anything coherent. He decided that it was okay if everyone thought he was gross instead.

"Now you know what it's like," Leslie said softly. Richard nodded; he'd been right. "I don't know what I miss more, being able to walk right or being able to use the toilet," she continued. Two more weeks, as her girlfriend had said, before she could even start working on it. And if her girlfriend's brother, that incredibly, girlishly cute boy with the ribbon pigtails, hadn't worked his magic... she tried not to think about things like that. "I just hope I'll be out of them in a couple of months." She really had no idea how long it would take, and neither did anyone else.

"Then Ricky won't have to worry about wearing those either," Susie said with a chuckle. Richard knew what she really meant. Susie had other diapers for him to wear instead.

"Can we just change the subject and never talk about this again?" Caroline demanded, thrusting the used diaper and wet wipes into a nearby trashcan, and they all agreed. She took a breath, trying to calm herself. "This way. You're about to see why I asked for the big tires." The reason was evident: this frolfing course was perpetually muddy in a lot of places and slightly overgrown. The distances were substantially longer than the ones at the park, too, so Richard wasn't sure whether he was doing better or worse than last time. At least this time he was wearing flat shoes and didn't have on any extra padding, but he still wasn't sure if that actually had much of an effect. Leslie went first, and she had to throw as hard as she could, at a perfect angle, just to have any hope of getting anywhere near the goal.

It wasn't until the third course that Richard realized that he was having a lot of fun. It really was burning hot out there and he was very glad his sister had remembered the sunblock, and sometimes one of them (never Leslie) would seriously overshoot and have to carefully step through tall grass to find the disc, especially when it bounced off a tree. Nobody was really keeping score. Caroline was blowing them all out of the water anyway, despite how much she cursed herself for missing the occasional shot that none of the others could ever have made.

But between the eighth and ninth holes, there was a mushy, muddy, slowly running creek, only a few inches deep but about five feet across. If all of them were healthy, they would have simply taken running jumps over it, no problem, but... "Okay, how are we going to do this?" Caroline asked. Richard wondered if a couple of them would have had to carry Leslie over in her wheelchair. 

"Can't we just go around?" Zoe asked. "See, there's a bridge." She pointed to a small footbridge only about fifty yards away, but there was a lot of tall grass and brush between them and it.

"We'd have to go all the way around, that'd take forever. Leslie, can you get out for a bit?" Caroline asked before helping her out of the wheelchair. Oh! Right! Richard felt like an absolute retard. It weighed less than the average bicycle, and Caroline easily held it over her head as she jumped across. "Now, getting you across, that'll be a little bit trickier." She considered how to do this, it was the kind of problem she'd seen at the shop. The only issue was that those were steel parts, and this was a girl with serious core muscle problems. Anything that required synchronization or timing was a very bad idea.

Leslie looked unnerved as Caroline visibly thought, and Richard spoke up. "No, it won't be." He also considered how he was going to do this. He didn't trust the strength of his arms to carry her that way, so he kneeled down in front of her. "Can you get on my shoulders?" Zoe helped her sit on the back of Richard's neck, her braces digging into his skin, and with effort, he stood up, holding her ankles and making sure she was balanced, and she held onto his ribboned pigtails like handlebars. She was lighter than he expected, and his legs and back were more than enough.

"You think you can make that jump like that?" Caroline asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I'm not going to jump," Richard replied, walking through the muddy stream with slow, heavy, purposeful steps, kneeling down so that she could sit in the wheelchair again. His socks and shoes, of course, were a muddy, wet mess when he was done.

"Thank you, Ricky," Leslie said, beaming at him as she sat down.

"Yes, thank you, little bro. I probably should have done that, but I'm really kind of glad you did," Zoe added. She'd bought the sneakers she had on just last month.

"I figured someone was going to take one for the team," Caroline said, and playfully flicked one of his pigtails. "Looks like our little sissyboy has a spine."

"Yes, and it doesn't hurt like I thought it would," Richard replied. His skin did hurt a bit from the braces, but whatever. Leslie's safety and happiness were more important, and Susie was smiling at him, and that was worth everything.

Their unscored game continued. Hole #12 was a doozy, twice as long as all the others, and Hole #15 required careful finesse because they were on the side of a hill and if they had tossed one too far there, it would have just kept going. After #18, they finally crossed the bridge that Zoe had pointed out earlier, walking back to the car, which was still entirely alone in the parking lot. "I'm sorry, everybody," Caroline said, shaking her head.

Susie was confused even more than the rest of them. "Sorry for what?"

"For dragging you through all that distance." She pointed to Ricky's feet. "And for your shoes!"

"That was a lot of fun, Caroline!" Susie pointed out.

"Yeah, okay, my shoes are a mess, I don't care, maybe that's a boy thing. But it really was fun!" Richard replied.

"Seriously, stop beating yourself up," Zoe said. "Coming out here was a good choice. We're not saying that just to make you feel better."

"I want to come back here in a few months or so," Leslie quietly added.

"All right, I choose to believe you," Caroline said as they got to the car. 

"Just one small thing," Richard said. "My socks and shoes aren't all that got dirty out there." The girls giggled, even Leslie. He'd gone #1 sometime around hole #10. "I don't want to do the whole lie back thing, it's all concrete out here."

He was just going to take his diaper off and replace it with his swimming trunks, but Leslie said something to Susie, who handed him a spare and a handful of wipes right away. "Here you go, Diaper Buddy," Susie told him, giggling, and how could he possibly refuse her?

"Be right back," he said, grabbing the stuff, running off to the same spot Caroline had been to, and changing himself into a fresh diaper without lying back on the solid concrete. He came back with the expectation of giggling, but instead he saw Leslie's legs hanging out of the car with Zoe in attendance, and at Caroline's insistence, he took off his socks and shoes and used his other boy clothes to wipe off his dirty feet before throwing them all back into his backpack.

"Shit, it's almost four already," Caroline said once they were done. "Where to?"

"A gas station for drinks, then the mall," Susie replied. "The same one we went to before. I need to get Ricky a pair of kneepads." The car, just beginning to move, jerked to an abrupt halt as Caroline could not possibly drive laughing that hard, and Zoe and Leslie were also laughing hysterically.

"OH MY FUCKING GOD!" Zoe shouted. "Ricky. She actually means that, doesn't she. Oh my God. I'm sure it'll go with the rest of the stuff - no, I'm not asking! I'm not going to ask. Actually, wait, one question. Do you want to change back? Are you going to wear your muddy shoes in there with your pink stuff?" She was right, but Richard wanted to enjoy being pretty as long as he could.

"I have an idea," Leslie said as loudly as she could. "But, um... Susie, is it okay if I ask you to buy something for him?"

Susie's face screwed up a bit. "It depends, what is it?"

"I want to go over to Spectral Boutique again. I saw the perfect shoes for that outfit." Susie's worried expression became a smile.

Caroline grinned. "If that's what they want, that's where I'm driving."

"Let's go, then," Susie agreed. 

"I'm just glad you're all having fun," Caroline said, and her tone of voice made it clear that she wasn't, despite having done well in their game.

Richard wondered if anger wasn't the only thing being caused by her PMS, and he opened his browser to search - and couldn't connect. There was cell service, but no data. "I can't browse the Internet, we must be in the boonies!" Richard shouted, half-seriously.

"The real boonies, you can't even get a signal," Caroline said.

"Yeah, I know."

"Would you like that, though?" Caroline asked mischievously. "To be all dressed up out in the real boonies?"

"As long as I had stuff that I could live on and the clothes were good for it, I would actually be okay with that," Richard replied. "It'd actually be better, I wouldn't have to worry about anyone seeing me."

"Get you a nice, big pioneer dress, then. The big Thanksgiving kind with the bonnet. Because women totally walked around the middle of nowhere wearing those."

"And then I could fix wagon tongues, hunt animals, drink bad water, get dysentery..." Richard joked, and they all laughed, and then it turned out that Leslie had read the ending of the last book of A Song of Ice and Fire, and the conversation continued until everyone got sick of the foul subject matter and they went back to talking about their favorite fanfics, and when they were finally back in range, Richard started looking up what was really wrong with Caroline. Ah, it wasn't just PMS, it was something called PMDD, and it was a lot more than just anger. He decided not to talk about it right away. It might just make her mood worse.

They got Slurpees instead of regular drinks, Richard keeping Leslie company in the car while the others went to the bathroom and Caroline accepting Susie's money this time, and the brain-freeze effect hit them all hard. They'd long since finished them when they got to the Spectral Boutique, and the girls giggled as he very gingerly stepped onto the concrete with his bare toes, carefully watching his steps and tiptoeing around like a little princess. The store had a couple of customers already inside, a pair of men roughly as gay as Franklin, and he recognized and greeted them before noticing what wasn't on Richard's feet.

"Um, I'd never thought I'd need a sign saying no shirt, no shoes, no service, but..." Franklin started awkwardly. His customers were usually appropriately dressed when they were buying things, despite the frequent inappropriateness of the things they were buying.

"That's what we're here to buy for him, though," Caroline said. "And socks."

"I know exactly what shoes match that outfit," he replied.

"So do I," Leslie added, and with Zoe's help, she walked with him to the shoe section, and Franklin and Leslie shared a laugh when it turned out that they were talking about the same pair.

Richard walked out of the Spectral Boutique in his new shoes with a big smile on his face. The socks he was wearing were almost a perfect match for his girly shirt, the hearts around the lightly frilled edges almost the same color, and his bright pink shoes with lavender laces were absolutely perfect, especially as both the two-inch heels and the front parts lit up in patterns every time he took a step, the little hearts flashing various shades of pink, the word 'Spectral' in lavender cursive on the sides. Other than the heels, they would have been perfect for a girl in first grade, and he completely loved them and wanted to go walking around in them, and they went to a mall where he could do exactly that.

The entirely soft, padded kneepads were very easy to find in the sporting goods store, and a few shoppers looked at the tall elementary school girl and disabled girl out with their friends. Susie picked them out for him, he knew they could be adjusted to fit him, and the clerk didn't even give Richard so much as a second glance as he rang up their purchase. Then Susie recalled that he also needed a headset, and he happily walked along to the game store, showing off his ribboned pigtails, pretty clothes, and light-up shoes to whoever cared to look. He wondered if anyone would ask how old he was, and he wondered what he should give as an answer, but no one said anything to them.

Thy browsed the game store for a bit, and Susie found a headset that she thought would work, but Richard whispered back, "No, not that kind. That has attached headphones. This one. 'Compatible with Bluetooth headphones.' The specs are better, too." Bent over and focused on the products, Richard had no idea that he was flashing the bottom of his diaper to the store clerks, one of which was staring and very much keeping his mouth shut; the other one was talking with Leslie, who was gushing about the JRPG she had bought there and nearly finished, although the clerk knew more about the secrets than she did.

Susie went up to the counter to pay, and the clerk was looking at Richard the whole time. "Hey, um, I know this is out of nowhere," the clerk awkwardly asked while ringing up the purchase, "but where do you like to go to hang out?"

The teenage clerk was four or five years older than Richard, but he saw right through his clumsy attempt at flirting anyway. "All over," Richard replied. "With my significant other," he decided on saying. He smiled, and the clerk clumsily apologized and handed Susie the bagged headset and receipt.

He overheard some of the conversation as they left. "Dave, you're such an idiot. That's a boy, and that's his girlfriend." A brief pause. "He was in here last week, you monkeytard!"

"I wasn't in here that day!"

"You seriously couldn't tell he's the kid we told you about, you must be the..." The conversation continued, but the group was out of earshot. Richard sighed inwardly. Confronting him in public? Not likely. Talking about him behind his back? Likely! He'd forgotten how much people enjoy doing that. He decided he didn't really care other than the fact that it made his friends giggle.

"Rolled the dice, took the chance," Caroline said, shrugging, and the other girls giggled louder.

"You need to start taking a tally," Zoe suggested half-seriously. "'Number of males I've fooled today.' I bet you could get to at least hundred a week if you hung out all day in a mall like this."

"God, Zoe, I'm not going to do that!" Richard replied, laughing a bit but actually a little offended. That wasn't the point, at least not for him, but he caught himself in a mental contradiction. Was he trying to fool people by dressing up like this in public? He loved being cute in public, but the problem was that the public was made out of people, and he still thought that getting a random male stranger - who was probably just as horny as he was - interested in him was really kind of a douchey thing to do, even when it wasn't dangerous. He realized that he was dressing for attention but didn't actually want it, at least not the wrong kind. "Besides, Susie, wouldn't you be jealous?"

"I don't care if you attract boys, just as long as you don't attract girls," Susie replied with an aristocratic air.

"But what if he attracts a girl pretending to be a boy?" Leslie wondered.

"Traps trapping traps trapping traps..." Richard muttered, and this time the group laughed.

"Or an actual transsexual that's has bottom surgery," Caroline said.

"Why does it matter how big her butt is?" Susie asked, confused. Leslie giggled, and Zoe and Caroline exploded in laughter, attracting even more attention. "Isn't that what 'bottom' means?" The laughter continued.

Richard wasn't going to let her be made fun of for too long. "It means 'bottom' as in 'lower body'," he explained quietly, making a scissoring motion with his fingers.

Susie frowned. "No, we're talking about turning girls into boys. Can people actually do that?"

"Oh my God, you are the most innocent... how can you be so innocent about this stuff?!" Caroline asked on their way out the mall door. "You're the one doing the whole... I thought you knew about all of this!"

"Caroline..." Richard started, sounding a bit whinier than he wanted to, looking up at her even despite his heels, and then looking around to make sure no one else could overhear. "Susie, they can kinda do it but it's not a real dick, they take skin from off the arm or leg, and I've seen the video on Bitchute and you really don't want to see the video." He turned to Caroline. "Okay? Can we please stop?"

"Stopping," Caroline said. "But speaking of traps, I'm really curious what kind of world she's going to trap you in with that and maybe those," she said, pointing to the bags.

Susie reclaimed her arrogant, aristocratic air immediately. "I told you before, that is all between us. Although I do wish there were an interactive world for boys like him." She'd searched for something appropriate in that vein, but all she found was just banal, tawdry pornography videos. Richard nodded, although he much preferred modded AAA games than the low-quality, amateur, boring, and often unfinished games that were usually made for his circle of fetishes, particularly since basically none of them were in 3D at all and many were in text, and in his opinion, anyone could just write stuff. (He briefly wondered if his own life would make a good story but decided that there wasn't anyone lame enough to write it - and who the hell would ever want to read it?)

"Make a pitch to Valve," Zoe suggested. "Capture the VR sissy market, you'll make a killing." It took them a bit to realize she was joking, and they got in the car as usual, doing the same tiring ritual to get Leslie out of her wheelchair and into the seat.

"Everyone, I'm sorry you're not getting any private time today, and I'm really sorry I'm being a total bitch," Caroline said once they were all inside. "I hope you're not pissed at me."

"Caroline, it's fine," Richard said immediately. "It's what I was looking up, it's called PMDD, it's not just anger, you have anxiety too."

"Shit. You're right. I'm not even sure if I should drive like this." Caroline sighed. "I'll just be careful, thanks for telling me. I'll get Leslie home first, and Susie, your dad's going to be here how long?"

"He'll be here early tomorrow morning, leaving in the afternoon Wednesday next week," Susie replied. "And Caroline, it really is okay, it's just hormones and stuff, we had a lot of fun, you never did anything bad." She smiled. "I'm more worried about Ricky. He's going to have to go a whole week without me," she said very femininely, and Leslie giggled.

"And here I thought I wasn't ever going to be tortured," Richard replied wistfully. Spankings, housework, and being dressed up like an elementary school girl in light-up sneakers were all fine; being without her was something he wished he could safeword out of.

"I'm sure you can make it a whole week," Susie replied with a wink in her voice, and only Richard got the full meaning of what she was talking about.

Zoe got a text from her mother asking where she was and when she'd get home; she answered with general honesty, saying that they had been frolfing and were just leaving the downtown mall to drop off Leslie first and that Caroline would be dropping them off soon.

"Hey Zoe, switch with me," Richard said once they had gotten Leslie out of the car, and Zoe knew exactly why. Now that Leslie was out, Richard had no reason to be in the front seat, not when Susie was back there, and he didn't care about showing himself because everyone in Leslie's household knew about him anyway. He swapped seats with his sister, and Susie took the middle back seat. She wanted to be pressed next to him, and, smiling, she had her hand under his skirtall, playing with his diaper, their mouths interlocked, even before Caroline had pulled out of the driveway.

"These windows aren't tinted," Caroline pointed out as the two lovers were engaged in a snogging session. Even Zoe and Leslie had never done that in a moving car. (Zoe was starting to wonder if maybe they should have.)

Richard was in too good of a mood to care. He took his mouth off his girlfriend's just long enough to tell Caroline, "Fuck 'em! Let them all think we're lesbians. They don't like it, they can stop staring into people's cars!" Susie giggled, and the two resumed their clothed, seatbelted lovemaking.

Zoe considered her words carefully. "I never thought that my brother had a such very good sense of the important things in life," she decided on.

"Destroy the enemy and fuck the women. Total masculine paragon back there," Caroline replied flippantly, and Richard and Susie laughed while their tongues were in each other's mouths. "Straight up serious, the combination of traits that he has? I never thought I'd see a boy like that. I am not even kidding. Zoe, your brother is unique."

"Yeah, I know." She spoke more quietly, but Richard and Susie could still hear her, despite their divided attention. "I didn't even know more than half of them until last week. I still feel like a bad big sister for that."

"Yeah, well, your mom won't feel much better when she finds out," Caroline replied. Abruptly, she honked her horn. "LIGHT'S GREEN, ASSHOLE! Anyway... sorry. Anyway, I'm just glad your mom found out about his dangerous side first. Means she's waaaay less likely to pull shit."

Zoe chuckled and formulated how she was going to say it. She decided to imitate Susie. "Caroline, you are not the only person in this car to have had such a thought," she said aristocratically.

"This car has a one princess rule," Caroline replied. "If the two of you want to compete, give me time to set up a betting station."

"Well, if we're judging by clothes, we already have our winner," Zoe replied, gesturing with a thumb to Richard, and Caroline pfffted in laughter, and her laughter was infectious to all of them.

Susie broke off their kissing, shaking her head. "We can't even... never mind, it's your car, sorry, Caroline. You have the right to be distracting and funny."

"I also have the right to be a bitch, and that's a right I've been making a bit too much use of today," Caroline added, as Zoe responded to another text from her mother, telling her that they just dropped Leslie off and that she could start making dinner if she wanted. "All right, we're going to go to Susie's house so Ricky can change, then... wait, she doesn't have any GPS tracking shit on your phones, does she?" Caroline asked, and Zoe just stared at her from the passenger seat, hoping that she'd figure this one out on her own.

"Caroline, who does computer shit, us or our mom?" Richard replied, bewildered that she would ask such a thing.

"Oh fuuuuck I am not thinking straight," Caroline said, not rolling her eyes too hard because she was driving. "Sorry! Mega brainfart. I hope you guys never see me like this again."

"Part of the condition makes you make a really big deal out of the condition," Richard reminded her. He'd had similar thoughts about himself. Finally being able to do what he wanted with who he wanted removed most of his anxieties, giving him the perspective to look back at his old self and recognize what he had been doing.

"Right. Note to self, drink a massive pot of chamomile tea next month. And make sure I'm somewhere with a working bathroom."

Not wanting to be distracted again from something deeper, Richard and Susie just held each other on the way to her house. Once Caroline parked, they ran out opposite doors, she unlocked the house rapidly, and the two of them embraced deeply once they were in, kissing passionately once again as Whiskers walked around them, his tail tickling their legs. Richard sighed even as they embraced. God, fuck, a week without her. He didn't want to let go, but he knew he had to, his mother was waiting for him. Once he did, he changed clothes as fast as he could, throwing his girly stuff into the backpack, not caring that his shoes and socks were still soggy - he'd wiped his feet on his other clothes and the dirt on his socks and shoes had spread as well, but he didn't care, boys were supposed to be dirty - and running out the door to jump in the car.

"I'll deal with the backpack," Zoe said. "You'll get Mom's full attention like that, believe me."

"I'm not worried," he replied. "I'll just tell her the truth about how I got dirty."

Zoe understood the plan, and it worked perfectly. His mother, predictably, asked him why he was filthy while Zoe was not. He, equally predictably, told her the general truth: that he had been out frolfing and that the reason he was so dirty was that he had carried Leslie across a muddy creek. His mother continued the predictability by telling him to go take a shower and change his clothes before he sat down at the dinner table, and he did just that, and he came back just as his mother and sister were distributing the food on the table. Normal, predictable family dinner.

As they sat down to eat together, Heather decided to begin the conversation she'd planned on having. "The two of you should be pleased to know that one of your cousins you despise so much will be gone for a while," she told them, and Richard wondered how anyone was going to go traveling for a gap year when most international travel was blocked. "Michael's father is sending him to residential treatment."

Richard felt something inside him give way, like a muddy cliff sloughing off into a river.

'So much for a predictable family dinner,' he barely had time to think before his entire mental process slid into a very familiar, very goal-oriented, very ruthless pattern. Of course it would never happen to him, nothing like that would ever happen to him, but the people he knew, even the people he didn't like, were apparently fair game. Richard didn't do anything theatric like drop his fork or spill his drink; he finished his bite without spitting or choking. But he couldn't stop it from coming on, the fury, the dissociation, the raw, burning, electrified connection to something deep within him that was not quite himself. He stiffened immediately, and his mother saw that look again, that desire to destroy. He immediately began formulating a plan. The most likely thing was that his uncle had no idea what he was getting into, that he just plain old didn't know that he was about to send his son to a genuine, certified hellhole.

"Finish your dinner, and then we can talk about what you're going to do," his mother told him, very carefully, as if she were talking to a live grenade. Zoe looked at him abruptly, and she realized he was doing that thing again. For her cousin, who was a disgusting, creepy loser and probably an incel to boot! What the hell?!

"I'm just going to look stuff up and show it to you, and him too, that's all," Richard said immediately. 'At first', he didn't add. This was Plan A. Plan B was to anonymously destroy his uncle's career - whatever it was - so he couldn't afford to pay for it. Plans C through Z would be worse. "Did he tell you the name of the place?"

She answered, and he didn't recognize the name, but it sounded exactly like the sort of place he was worried about. After he was done what he needed to do, he didn't even want to remember it anyway. He did finish his dinner like his mother asked - quickly and quietly, consciously chewing every bite - and then he dealt with his dirty dishes and went to his room.

"Ricky, why are you freaking out about something that's happening to my cousin?" Zoe asked him on the stairs, completely weirded out.

"Because I can't let evil win, Zoe," he replied.

Compared to password guessing and social network tracing, this was a breeze. Search engines - he didn't use just one - did most of the hard work for him. He couldn't believe how easily he remembered the names of the websites he went to, despite them being long deleted out of his browser history. He saw the same forum topics, the same screenshots, the same articles, still all preserved from the first time he'd dived down this particular rabbit hole, one of his first forays into disturbing material, and his very first, fumbling searches as a dark neophyte had pulled down both fictional and real descriptions of child torture, a wonderful and wholesome experience for a boy who had just turned twelve. This particular place was new, with a fancy website promising rehabilitation and family connection, but it proudly put the names of everyone involved on its website, and a few searches of their names showed what those people were really about.

Hell, even the marketing material - the basic marketing material, sent to the parents by the place itself! - had so many giant red flags it made Richard think of some of the worst fantasies he'd seen. Extremely limited contact with parents. A level system with rewards and poorly defined punishments. Deprivation of every sort. A break-them-down, build-them-up attitude that was guaranteed to cause lifelong trauma. Forced marches in the middle of nowhere, gussied up with different words. If he didn't know better, he'd say that this was all a sick prank, that the 'transporters' would show up at his uncle's house and proceed to play Rick Astley's most infamous hit at max volume with the lyrics rewritten into 'You went and tried to send your kid, send him off to be tortured...' But no. The world wasn't that nice.

He still had to go digging, and he really, really didn't want to read the detailed descriptions of absolute mental and occasionally physical abuse, but it wasn't for him to read and he could skim it. Ah, there, a main director of this new place was described by a woman - then a teen girl - on a forum as being sexually abusive at a since-closed facility, that was a good one to add. Another employee... wait, was that an actual criminal record? Throw that in, too. Holy shit, that person had been sued successfully, that goes in there too. Accumulating and connecting the direct evidence took him all of half an hour, a bit less than half of which was spent collating screenshots together to provide a clear, unbroken chain. Done. He realized that he'd deleted the old emails his uncle Martin used to send him - bad move, but how was he to know when he was eleven? - and got Martin's email addresses, and then those of Martin's wife and son, from his mother. Richard would have acquired them even if Heather didn't give them to him, and both of them knew it.

He thought for a while as to what to say in the email and just decided to say nothing at all. The screenshots - more than a dozen of them, some made into combined images - entirely spoke for themselves. His uncle got the To line, the wife and son got CCs, and he decided to CC his mother as well, as he figured she deserved to know what the hell he was doing. He then sent a copy of the email to Zoe, with an explicit warning not to read it unless she really wanted to know what the fuck he was trying to save such an awful person from.

Zoe was at his door three minutes later. "It's that shit. It's that conversion therapy gulag shit. You should have just said it was that."

"It's similar," Richard agreed. "I thought you knew what the words 'residential treatment' usually meant."

"I do now. Fuck, Ricky." Her thoughts were a complicated mix of relief and frustrated anger at herself. Sure, she hated her cousin like poison, but there was shit she shouldn't let happen even to the people she hated. Fortunately, her brother had come through. Again. Two for two.

"I thought it was a psychiatric facility," Heather said from the hall, passing Zoe while stepping into her son's room. "Richard, I'm not angry with you, but I need you to tell me the whole truth right now. When did you start learning about this sort of thing? Why do you know so much about it?" She knew her son was a computer genius, but she knew that there was no way - absolutely no way - he could have compiled such things so quickly unless he was extremely familiar with the material.

Richard got up from his chair and went up to his mother to speak quietly. "Last year, just because it was the kind of stuff I wasn't supposed to be looking at," he confessed. "It was all just morbid curiosity."

"A fascination for the macabre," Zoe added, pronouncing 'macabre' perfectly.

"Yeah, pretty much that. I just couldn't stop looking at stuff like that. But I did stop, Mom, I don't look at it anymore unless I have to." There was a bit of accusation with the last two words, but it wasn't at her. It was, after all, his mother's brother who had caused Richard to go back down into that pit.

Heather sighed. No wonder her son was so high level. He'd gone to the Abyss. "Well, I certainly don't think Michael will be going to that place now," she said. She shook her head. "The things we do to each other. The things we do to ourselves." Neither of her children knew quite what she meant. Abruptly, she hugged him so quickly that he didn't even realize what was going on until she was already in her arms. "You're too good, Richard," she said, and he could hear the tears. "I'm so glad you're such a good boy." Richard blinked in shock, not sure what had brought that on. Oh, right. He'd just sent his mother extremely vivid descriptions of real world child abuse. That might have done it. She released the hug and started hugging his sister instead. "You two go to bed on time, and you have a wonderful day tomorrow."

The thing that had shook her the most about the material Richard had sent her, beyond anything else, was the disconnect between parents and children, that the parents were willing to believe someone who was effectively a random stranger, having no contact with their own children for months and months. How bad did a child have to be before that was even considered, she knew Michael wasn't that awful! And the money, the cost! What on Earth had her brother been thinking? She was brooding on the subject in the middle of Candy Crush when, half an hour later, she got an angry, short text from Martin to check her email.

\---

Heather, I don't know what possessed you to accumulate this material nor why it was sent from your son. You did tremendous damage to us. HE WAS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE TOLD HE WAS GOING. I told the treatment center and now THEY ARE NO LONGER WILLING TO TAKE HIM because the well has been poisoned. Now my wife thinks I am the devil and my son said he wants to see me dead. So thanks for that. Needless to say, I don't think you'll be attending another wedding of anyone we know. Consider this a goodbye.

Martin.

P.S. I don't believe that a 13 year old could do that, but my wife does. If it was him, you need to get that boy under control right now.

\---

Of course, she would do no such thing. Instead, she called her son in to read it, and his sister followed. Perhaps they could make more sense of it than she could. Not telling Michael that he was going away for months? What sort of bizarre idea was that?

"He's crazy, Mom," Zoe said upon reading it. "I know, he's my uncle, but he's crazy."

"I wouldn't even reply to him, Mom," Richard said. "He's totally coco-nuts." The plan hadn't succeeded the way he wanted, and he was very surprised that a place like that wouldn't even want a kid anymore because he was simply informed - he wondered whether something else was going on, but he didn't care. This was still a major win in his book, in fact a double win - neither he nor his sister wanted to want to talk to that branch of the family again anyway. Richard had prevented horrifically evil things from happening to someone he detested. Was that heroism? He didn't know and didn't care. His monster sense wasn't tingling anymore, and he just wanted to relax.

"Just go do whatever," Heather told her children with a sigh. "I'll deal with your crazy uncle." She shook her head, admitting to herself that her older brother had always been kind of a prick, even when she was little, but he was still family and she didn't want to think ill of him.

Richard went back to his room and checked his own email just in case the man had sent him something. His uncle hadn't, but he got something from Michael, an email that had obviously been heavily coached, sentence by sentence, by Michael's mother.

\---

Mom says I should thank you, so thank you. I don't know what else to say to you. You prevented me from being sent somewhere bad. People would have come to take me away if you didn't do that. Thank you very much.

Sincerely, Michael

\---

Richard reminded himself that he wasn't actually talking to a small child - a lot of disturbing concepts were at play when he thought that - and his reply was terse. He knew he could have said more, but he was creeped out and way too tired and didn't want to communicate with this douchebag any more than he absolutely had to.

\---

I just wanted to stop evil from happening. Now stop lusting after my sister.

\---

After he sent it, he suddenly realized that he might have gotten Michael in even more trouble - his mother had obviously been looking over his shoulder! - but he got back a reply much sooner than he expected, and this one was not coached at all, nor was it even remotely checked for spelling and grammar.

\---

she had fucking fetish customes, , why was she dressing like that for, if she don't want people stearing at her then shouldn't dress up to get steared at, you were there you saw her a whore, maybe next time shell think first and be stupid later  
you did get my whole ass dad almost a heart attack though so thanx for real  
>I just wanted to stop evil from happening. Now stop lusting after my sister.

\---

Richard shook his head. It really disturbed him that there were actually people this stupid in his family, and this jackass apparently had no idea what the hell he'd just avoided. ('The well had been poisoned, my ass. He still doesn't know even after I told him!') There were so very, very many things that Richard could have replied to him with, but he decided not to bother. He considered forwarding that last one to his mother, to drive home a point, but that wouldn't have helped anything and he really didn't want to deal with that shit just then, or ever. Instead, he forwarded it to his sister because she deserved to know, but Zoe didn't do anything with it either. It was disgusting and it would just make her mom feel like crap. She filed it away as ammunition if she ever needed to use it.

Richard flopped onto the bed in his T-shirt and loose shorts, lights off, staring at the ceiling until he fell asleep, his computer's monitor on until it went into sleep mode, swearing to himself. It had been a very long and tiring day. Enjoying dressing like a little girl was the very least of the weird shit in his life. He was thirteen years old and didn't want to deal with evil crap anymore. He didn't want to talk to crazy people. He didn't want crazy people in his family nor his life. He didn't want to have to explain bizarre and evil shit to his mother. He didn't want to have to bring out that anti-monster shit again. He wished that Caroline's PMDD-induced bad mood would have been the worst thing he'd had to deal with that day. He realized that he was being selfish - he had enjoyed a mostly fun day and he knew from the different emails that his cousin's family was in chaos - but he was completely exhausted and felt like he really needed to catch a break.

Except he was getting a break from Susie, which was no break at all.

Zoe told the Squad about what Richard had done, but he was already asleep.


	11. Sun's Wrath

"Well, there she goes," Zoe said as Heather left for work. She smiled at her brother. She'd been meaning to spend time with him, and as Susie's father was home and Caroline wasn't driving anyone anywhere that day, she figured it was the perfect chance. "So. How am I going to be dressing my little sissy up today?"

"I don't feel like it," Richard replied morosely, intending to just spend the day in his T-shirt and boxers like a regular boy. Thinking about spending so much time without Susie didn't put him a good mood. Without her around, dressing up just felt like a big waste of time, like half the equation was missing, like he was going back to the lame part of a game after having enjoyed so much of the fun part.

"Seriously?" Zoe asked, disappointed, and he nodded. Of course, she knew what his mood was about, but she didn't want to push him, and his spirits needed lightening. "You want to play a game, then? Do that Archon thing again, teach me some more? It beats sulking for a week."

Richard let himself smile. His sister had a point. He couldn't spend the whole week moping; that really was a painful waste of time, and his princess would be angry with him if he did. "You know what, yeah, let's do that."

They ran through a 1v1 against an Elite opponent together, talking through the open doors, Richard telling his sister what to do when and in what context, trying to get across the casual, easy familiarity that he had. He realized that just telling her what to do wasn't enough. He was learning how to teach.

They were in the later part of the middlegame when there was a knock on the door, a sharp, fast, irregular knock that Richard did not like at all. They could have paused the game, but Richard said, "I'll get it, you can finish this yourself." Something was very wrong, and, without thinking through it, he intuitively decided that he did not want his sister talking to whoever was at the door. He silently crept downstairs and peered through the peephole. Nobody. "Hello?" he asked. "Who's there?" Nobody answered. He looked through the windows and saw nobody. He really didn't like this.

Their front door had what their mother called the full monty: latch, deadbolt, chain. Heather had locked both latch and deadbolt on her way to work, and Richard was never happier for that fact. He didn't want to open that door at all unarmed. Getting a three-inch knife from the kitchen, he applied the chain to the door and unlocked it, then opened the door as far as the chain would go. He intended to yell again, but abruptly, an envelope fell from the inside of the door and hit the concrete. 'What the hell?' Looking carefully, listening for the sound of someone breathing, Richard reached his unarmed hand through the door and snatched the envelope in one quick motion, then he slammed the door shut and locked both latch and deadbolt. Abruptly, he dropped the envelope, suddenly certain that he shouldn't be touching it with his bare hands. He retrieved a pair of rubber gloves from the kitchen, and used the knife to very carefully cut open the envelope, emptying the contents onto the living room table.

He had almost expected what was in there. Pictures, of him skipping the neighborhood in his jingling dress, taken from various angles, one from an elevated position and one very uncomfortably close to his house. And a note, printed in Comic Sans, alongside a picture of a location he'd skipped past.

\---  
You are so unbelievably cute!!! I really appreciate you sharing your cuteness with the whole world. I would like to see some more of you! Meet me at this spot at 11 tomorrow and I will $$$reward$$$ you just for showing up!

Of course, if you don't share your cuteness with me, I will just have to share your cute little secret with the whole world, too! Don't worry, I really don't want to hurt you, so you have nothing to worry about when you do come!

Looking forward to seeing you there, cutie! But come by yourself or you'll be in BIG TROUBLE!  
\---

Other thirteen year olds would have been intimidated, deeply creeped out, and probably terrified. Richard was offended that whatever psychotic retard had left that there obviously had no idea who the hell he was dealing with. He was also angry with himself for not seeing photos being taken of him, and he was extraordinarily pissed off and frustrated at having to deal with shit like this yet again. First Leslie, then his cousin, and now the monsters of the world had finally come to literally knock on his door. He was just glad that this guy hadn't done this yesterday. If this had happened when he wasn't home, and then his mom had come home to see this stuffed in the door, things would have been very ugly indeed.

"You're actually going to try to blackmail me," he quietly said to the empty room. "ME." He felt like he was playing Fallout 4, wearing modded dress-armor while a ghoul was rushing him from a hundred yards away, consulting his modded, bright pink Pip-Boy and deciding which overpowered weapon to kill it with. 

The first, of course, was to send it all straight to the police. He didn't doubt that they could and would find and arrest this dipshit in short order, and he vengefully wished for a very large, very sadistic cop with a very heavy knee. The problem there was that they might involve his mother, and that was an awkward conversation he really didn't want to have.

The second was to pretend to agree and then get Caroline's PTSD veteran crew to ambush him. He was fairly sure that 'Wanna go kill a pedo?' was something that such people would actually be down for. The man might be armed, though, although Caroline's buddies would surely also be, but... no, bad idea, as were similar things such as burning his house down. It wasn't that he had any moral compunctions about doing such things - this monster had thought he was blackmailing an innocent child instead of the Sith apprentice he actually got, he deserved an excruciating death at the very least - but Richard didn't want to get himself or his friends in trouble.

The third was the thing in the darkness, but he already knew what it would say: that he could handle this himself. This required merely apprentice-level Sithery for which he didn't need to call up his master.

The fourth was the nuclear option of telling the entire Internet himself, taking pictures of all of it with his phone and posting the entirety somewhere like Tumblr. If he really wanted, he could do even worse: send it all to every single news organization and law enforcement agency he could possibly contact. This would basically guarantee the end result he wanted, but it wasn't good either. If he wanted to act indirectly, he had access to computer proxies; he didn't need to use meat ones. Besides, the asshole already had his home address - giving him any time to react was a bad move. The after-effects of being widely known as a sissy boy were less important, but this one was just sending it to the cops, only with extra, negative steps.

The fifth was counter-blackmail, 'Surprise, you just sent me evidence on yourself', but that would have required this guy to suffer an outbreak of sanity and could lead to very bad outcomes. It was a dumb fantasy and Richard forced it out of his mind as stupid kiddie shit that he was too old to consider.

The sixth was to break into the guy's wi-fi and sniff his packets. Richard discounted this idea as well. How could he anonymously tell the FBI the guy had child porn - which he probably did - and have them react as quickly as he'd need, even if he could pull it off?

Richard realized that he was totally overthinking this. He really didn't need to get incriminating evidence to smash whoever this was. Few things were more self-incriminating than what he'd just left at Richard's house! Leaving physical evidence that he was attempting to blackmail a child?! That was basically handing Richard an axe and laying his own neck out on the chopping block. Best just to chop.

Wait a minute - if this jackass had been following him, then he also probably knew where Susie lived! Who knew what about himself wasn't even remotely important - this guy had to be chopped, no mercy, no hesitation, as quickly as possible and at any cost!

"You were right, I could finish that myself. So who was it?" his sister asked right after he made his decision.

"Some asshole's trying to blackmail me," Richard replied casually.

"Seriously?!" Adrenaline rushing, she rushed downstairs to look at the pictures and the note.

"Yeah, wasn't sure how to handle it," Richard admitted. "I'm giving it to the cops."

"Let's ask Leslie's parents what to do," she suggested instead, pulling out her phone.

Richard facepalmed at his own stupidity. "Oh, right, cripes, I forgot!" Robert was a more experienced wielder of that particular axe.

Zoe laughed, glad to have something to laugh at. "Yeah, Ricky, you forgot that the parents of your sister's girlfriend are experts in this kind of thing and you don't need to do everything yourself." She chuckled lightly and speed-dialed. "Oh, hey, Robert. Yeah, somebody took pictures of Ricky in one of his dresses and left them here with a really stupid blackmail note." Richard didn't hear the man's response, but it made Zoe laugh and he could guess what it was. "I know, right?! Can you or Willa help with this?" Another response. "Yeah, right now's perfect." Zoe smiled at the response. "Cool, thanks a lot." She hung up. "Get this, he actually goes to people's houses sometimes, and stuff like this counts as part of his job."

"He's coming now?"

"Yup, fifteen minutes. So, have you found out who's blackmailing you yet?" She was only half joking with the question. Her adrenaline was dwindling, as she knew that Robert had been right: the guy had definitely chosen the wrong kid to try that on.

"I'm about to," Richard replied, pointing at the picture taken from a high angle. That one had to have been taken from someone's house, which was almost certainly the asshole's or the house of someone he knew. With Zoe's help and a bit of mapping and triangulation later - he determined exactly which house it was, and they were in the middle of looking him up with free resources when another knock came at the door, this one much more polite.

Zoe peered through the peephole and opened the door. "Hey, Robert. We found out what house he took one of the pictures from, we're trying to find out who lives there."

Robert stepped in the door, and Richard was once again surprised by just how much he looked like Gordon Freeman. 'Forget the axe, this asshole's getting smashed with a crowbar.' "That's good. Did you search the sex offender registry?" Robert asked.

Richard perked up. "No, crap, I didn't even think about that." Lo and behold, searching found a sex offender with the same address that Richard and his sister had triangulated, and Richard laughed. "He really was dumb enough to take that from his own house! While on the sex offender list! Oh my God, what a dumbass!" A grotesque, out-of-shape dumbass who apparently liked to perform Gross Sexual Imposition on twelve-year-old girls and would have certainly done the same or worse to him, given the chance.

"Smart people usually aren't in the business of blackmailing children," Robert replied, looking at all the pictures and the note, exhaling a bit. "Honestly, this is one-and-done, I don't need more than what's right here." The police could get other people's doorbell camera recordings, but they wouldn't even need those. "I know who this is. He's on parole, they let him out because of COVID. Hundred percent, he's going straight back to prison, and he's probably not getting out until you're well over 18. Unless something goes awry, your involvement is no longer necessary and we won't have to get your mother involved either. The investigation'll be on him, not you. I'm still glad you came to me." There was some victim-contact procedures that Robert could make not happen, making sure that neither Richard nor his mother would be automatically called. "Let's pack this all up and I'll give it to who needs to get it."

"Be careful, fingerprints," Richard said, putting his gloves back on to handle the material.

"I wouldn't worry about fingerprints at this point. By the way, I know you like going out like that, and I know, it's your right, it's a free country and a nice neighborhood, but don't do that alone."

"I'm really obviously bait, and my phone is right there," Richard replied, pointing to his purse in the high-angle picture.

"Yeah, well, as I'm sure you've noticed, some people take obvious bait, and when seconds count, the police are minutes away. I'm not saying don't do it. I'm just saying don't do it by yourself, makes you much less of a target."

Richard nodded in acquiescence. This was the guy's job, and he had a point. "Yeah, you're right. Hey, thanks a lot, Robert."

"Pfft. After what you did last week? This isn't even a fraction of that." He got up, taking the envelope with him. "By the way, I don't think he has friends, but if you see anyone else creeping around here, you call the police, or me, somebody."

"We will," Zoe promised him.

"Also..." He sighed. "Your mother is going to find out about you sooner or later, especially if you're doing things like this. You can't keep this from her indefinitely, and it's really better if you tell her in a calm environment. If you want me to be there when you tell her, just ask."

"I just want later and not sooner," Richard replied.

Zoe wasn't in the mood to consider telling secrets, because she figured that once his was out, hers would be as well. "You've got a point, but... for now, just get rid of this guy, please?" Brother and sister had a unified attitude: they just wanted to be done with things like this.

Robert nodded. "All right. You two be safe. I'm not going to try to tell teenagers to properly keep masks on outside, but try not to get within spitting or sneezing distance of anybody you don't know. For multiple reasons." He waved and left, his next stop being the police station, where he and the sex crimes unit's supervisor were on a first-name basis.

[11:20 AM] Zoe: Well, that was fast lol  
[11:21 AM] Zoe: Some pedo tried to blackmail Ricky by leaving pictures of him in a dress and a crazy note.

"Hey, Zoe?" Richard asked as he put the knife and gloves away. "Do you think there's any chance of that guy actually having friends to come here?"

"If Robert says he doesn't think it'll happen, it really won't happen, he's super cautious," Zoe replied. She severely doubted that anyone who looked like that freak had very many friends at all, let alone anyone that would help blackmail teenagers. "He'd want Leslie always wearing a mask if she could breathe through it okay."

"Then can we just pretend that didn't happen and go back to what we were doing? I want to see the replay." Zoe heard the deep frustration, the sick-of-it-all, in her brother's voice.

She reached out to run her fingers through his long hair, and he did not pull away. "Sure thing, little bro." They went to her room and replayed the first part on regular speed to focus on early game micro, and Zoe briefly looked down at her phone long enough to type replies as his brother sat on her bed, occasionally pointing things out.

[11:25 AM] Caroline: so what happened to the pedo  
[11:26 AM] Zoe: Leslie's dad came over and the guy's going to jail  
[11:28 AM] Caroline: the guy should thank his lucky stars tbh  
[11:28 AM] Zoe: IKR! lmfao

Zoe actually did laugh and looked back at the screen. Richard explained some more stuff, about units and what the computer was probably doing and what a player would do, doing a very good job of acting like they hadn't just shut down a blackmail attempt.

[11:31 AM] Zoe: Leslie's dad also said that Ricky shouldn't go out there by himself dressed like that.  
[11:33 AM] Leslie: Oh wow. Yeah that guy made a big mistake LOL  
[11:34 AM] Leslie: Dad's always cautious about stuff like that. It's good advice.  
[11:34 AM] Leslie: Even for you, Ricky!  
[11:35 AM] Richard: Yeah, he's probably right. I thought I was too obviously bait. Some people just take it anyway. Guess I'll just have to wear boy clothes to Susie's house :(

They sped up the replay some.

[11:41 AM] Susie: Or you just need someone to walk with you instead, sissy boy :heart:

Hearing from Susie, even in text, was exactly what Richard needed just then, and he perked up immediately.

[11:41 AM] Leslie: LOL yeah, or that  
[11:42 AM] Richard: Yes please :) Surprised you're on, you're out with your dad?  
[11:43 AM] Susie: At the grocery store. He's surprised half the people aren't wearing masks.  
[11:43 AM] Richard: Is he at risk?

Susie didn't reply right away, and the replay ended shortly thereafter. Richard exhaled deeply, laying back on Zoe's bed, feeling a mix of emotions, the strongest being that he was missing out on something. "You know, actually... do you want to dress me up?"

She got out of the chair and looked down at him, smiling. "Not just that. I want to treat you just like my sweet little sister," she said with a small, swift pointing motion.

"Okay," Richard said without any hesitation.

"All right, little sissy. Take off all your clothes, turn around, and close your eyes. I've got a surprise for you." He looked a little concerned, and she gently tapped his nose. "Your big sister isn't going to do anything bad to you."

He exhaled again. Of course he trusted her, and he had to remind himself of that. He did as she told him, and as he was taking off his shirt and boxer shorts, she was rummaging in her closet. "Lift up your arms," he heard from behind him, an instruction that he completely expected, and once he did, he felt a shirt go over him. "Left leg, then right leg," she instructed him, and he felt her pull up what felt almost like ordinary boys' underwear on him. Then Zoe snapped something elastic, with a lot of fabric hanging from it, around his waist and ran a pair of straps over his shoulders. "Okay, you can look now," she said, and he heard the giggle in her voice.

Richard looked down and saw a lot of yellow. He could read upside down fairly well, and he saw the brightly colored pink words "Little Miss Sunshine" with a picture of a smiling sun. His legs were covered by a full yellow skirt that reached to just above his knee. With Zoe giggling, he pushed up the full skirt and bent over, looking at what she had put under the skirt. "What the heck?"

"Mom called them modesty panties," Zoe said.

"More like granny panties!"

"Yeah, pretty much. But perfect for you when you're not wearing diapers, means your dick won't fall out," she said with a giggle. "So, tell me the truth. Do you like the outfit?"

"I really do like it," he replied. He'd tricked her into putting him in that first dress, gone out in public in all kinds of dresses afterwards, even been put in ribbon-tied baby bondage that one time. Somehow, just telling her that he really did like wearing this childish outfit felt like another step. "The only thing I don't like is the straps." They were digging into his shoulders, and he pushed them off to let them hang down.

"Actually, it looks better that way, and they make convenient handles," Zoe determined.

Richard blushed a bit, looking down, but he didn't argue. He could trust his sister, so he didn't mind her holding on to him. It wasn't a sexual thing, not with her. It was just comforting being led, letting his big sister make decisions for him, knowing that she really did have his well-being in mind. He just wanted to know one thing. "Where did you even get this?"

"Mom bought it secondhand when I was eleven, it's been sitting in the back of my closet forever. I swear, I was so relieved when I showed her it didn't fit. She told me to hold onto it, I'd grow into it! She forgot about it first, I forgot about it for a while too. But it looks like its new owner can really appreciate being Little Miss Sunshine." She smiled. "I think I'm going to keep calling you that today. You don't mind, do you, Sunshine?" Smiling in return, he shook his head, and Zoe was abruptly reminded of a less pleasant experience.

When he was nine and she was ten, she'd tried to give him a cutesy name, just for fun. He'd dripped half-melted ice cream onto himself, and she started calling him Sticky Ricky. He'd taken it very badly: he immediately went upstairs to wash himself off, then he retreated to his room, blocking the door, not even finishing the rest of the bowl. She'd kept calling him that through the door, and Heather had told her, very firmly (and hypocritically, in Zoe's opinion), to stop it before telling Richard to come downstairs and finish his ice cream before Zoe ate it. Instead, in total silence and pure spite, he had gone back down, washed out the bowl, flushing the ice cream down the sink in the process, then gone back upstairs. His mother, shocked at the waste and at his reaction, had told him that he wasn't getting any dessert or sweet snacks for a week, and he hadn't seemed to care.

Richard hadn't said a single word to his sister (and not much to his mother) for that whole week and a good while thereafter, and she'd thought of him as an overreacting spoilsport who couldn't take a joke. Zoe, at fourteen, mentally thanked her mother for quickly putting an end to it and kicked herself for having been a stupid brat. If he'd had any inclinations towards showing her his softer side back then, she'd helped to force them down instead of bring them out. If she'd been nicer to him, she probably could have been doing this with him years ago, and she still intended to make up for lost time.

The chat was still going:

[11:50 AM] Susie: Actually he's had antibodies for a month.  
[11:52 AM] Susie: He wants to meet you all at the YMCA with Leslie on Friday.  
[11:55 AM] Caroline: oh shit ricky is that wedding bells or a funeral dirge i hear?  
[11:56 AM] Leslie: LMFAO  
[11:57 AM] Zoe: *searches ebay for pink coffins*  
[11:57 AM] Leslie: OMFG LMFAO  
[11:58 AM] Richard: Et tu, Zoe?!

Zoe giggled when reading his reply, and he chuckled. At least he wouldn't actually have to go a whole week without Susie, even if sex wasn't part of the itinerary. "Well, that's definitely going to be fun. But for now, Sunshine, phone down. I know you've been trying, but today, you're going to get your hair braiding skills up. It just takes practice."

They practiced for a while. She showed him different braiding styles, ways that hair could be intertwined even if she knew that he wasn't ready for them yet, but seeing them done made him a bit more aware of how basic an ordinary braid really was. His fingers were starting to get the knack of it within twenty minutes. Watching her little brother in a yellow shirt and skirt outfit, braiding his long, straight hair with increasing finesse, was far more interesting than anything else she might have been paying attention to. Richard started shaking his hands around at the wrists. "My fingers are starting to hurt, can we leave it like this?" he complained after getting his hair into some decently crafted pigtails.

"Okay, we'll stop here. You're doing a much better job. Let's show everybody." She took a selfie with her brother, both of them smiling, and uploaded it to the chat with an explanation. Richard was worried that maybe Susie's dad was looking over her shoulder, but that hadn't happened, and the other girls daaaaawed over how cute he looked and complimented him on how good he'd become at braiding his own hair. "And now, I have a special little gift for my sweet little sis." She reached up into the upper part of her closet and pulled out a hefty, broad-spectrum pack of crayons along with a reasonably thick coloring book.

As a first grader, Zoe hadn't colored in all the pages in order, with some pages being better done than others, and Richard started on the first untouched one, a panoramic beach view. "Perfect start for our little Sunshine," Zoe said, smiling, and she looked to see whether Richard was an outside-the-lines or inside-the-lines kid. He actually went a step further: he was an extra-lines kid. Most of the pages were generally simple, with lots of open spaces, and instead of just coloring them in or smearing the colors, Richard decided to add complexity when he felt like it, drawing a rudimentary dolphin and surfer after coloring in the sun a bright yellow. He couldn't recall ever having played with a coloring book before.

He turned the page and there was the last picture that the younger Zoe had touched, a picture of a clown's face with a thick black X in crayon over it. "I remember that now," Zoe said before Richard could ask. "Oh my God, I remember. I was, like, six. Yeah, this was for my birthday, my sixth birthday, I think. There was this festival, you were off doing something else, but Mom wanted me to see the performing clown, and I was nervous, and it was doing balloon animals." Richard chuckled at the clown being called 'it' and wondered if he should finally watch the movie. After the things he'd seen, he figured that nothing that Hollywood could submit to the general public could possibly faze him. "And it saw that I wasn't having fun, so it made this.. terrifying face, and it did that coin trick from behind the ear thing." Zoe's expression got serious, as she remembered how she'd nearly caught lasting coulrophobia. "I didn't even see the coin, I thought it had actually pulled something off my head. I screamed. I screamed and ran. I think I made it all the way to the bathroom before Mom caught up with me. I couldn't even breathe, I was screaming so hard. We did not go back to that part, we went to... right, you were in the bouncy castle! And that's where Mom took me, and you were doing flips onto your butt and rolling around. I remember now."

"I kinda remember doing flips, I don't remember the rest of that," Richard said. He had actually been on more than one bouncy castle, having enjoyed them a lot when he was younger. (He realized that he still did - he just didn't have the opportunity to get on one.)

"You didn't see the rest of that, and Mom never told you. I remember now, she promised me that she wouldn't!" It wouldn't have mattered, she realized. She could never recall Richard ever making fun of anyone for anything, even when he was very little. He just never found it an enjoyable thing to do.

"If it'd been me, I'd have freaked out the same way or worse," Richard told her matter-of-factly.

Zoe nodded. "You totally would have. Speaking of which, they did a study in a children's hospital, it was in Britain or something, and guess what percent of the kids found clowns scary. Just guess, pick a number."

"Eighty?" Richard ventured.

"One hundred." Richard laughed. "I'm not kidding. Every. Single. One. Girls and boys. The older ones found them worse. So yeah, big ol' X over that clown, and if you find any more in there, you can cross them out too." He agreed with a smile. "Okay, Sunshine. We have milk, we have bananas that we need to use or get rid of, we have sugar, and we have a food processor that Mom never uses. I'm going to go see if my milkshakes are as good as Susie's. You be good, little sis."

As soon as she left the room, he immediately started flipping through the pages looking for something important. Did it have one? Oh, there was a good one, and he knew exactly what to do. He immediately got to work, but she came back in the room, milkshakes in hand, before he was done, and he flipped the book upside down as soon as he heard her come in.

Zoe chuckled as she handed him his milkshake. "Are you hiding something from me?"

"Yeah, don't look at what I'm doing. I'll show you when I'm done. It's a surprise." Richard, having hated surprises, had never said those three words to his sister before.

She gave him a smile. "All right, Sunshine. Let's see what kind of surprise you'll give me." Milkshake in hand, she turned to her computer, put on her headphones, and found music videos to watch.

She had barely gotten through one before Richard said that he was done, the milkshake finished and the page colored.

Zoe took one look at what he'd done and guffawed. The page he was showing her featured five clowns, and he had very much crossed them out, but not in the way she'd expected. The first had been shot with a big black hole in the head, and he'd drawn red lines to make it look like its brain had splattered out from behind. The second was turned into a rotting, green zombie, with a couple of limbs blacked out. The third had its hands in front of its stomach, and Richard had made it look like it was trying to hold its intestines in. Number four had a brown noose around its neck, hanging from an overhead rafter, and number five had a lot of red lines on its body as if someone had slashed it up with a knife. He'd crudely colored in the rest of the page. Zoe laughed more at the idea that her brother, all dressed up as Little Miss Sunshine, had been such an edgelord, and in a way, it was one of the most ordinary-boy things she'd ever seen him do. She giddily held the book to her chest. The idea was silly, but somehow, by doing that with her old coloring book, she felt like he'd reached back into her childhood and retroactively removed a bad experience from it. She wouldn't really remember that awful face, that trick that had disturbed her so much at the time, and her terrified screaming anymore; she would remember her dressed-up brother drawing dead clowns. "Ricky, thank you so much. You can color in the rest of the book, but I'm keeping this one. Wait, I'm really keeping this." She pulled out her phone and proceeded to upload a picture of the page to the Squad chat, where she started to explain how the image had come about and why she'd wanted it.

Richard smiled at her from his seat on the floor, looking up at her in the chair. "I'm glad you like it." He'd thought maybe she'd be disgusted at him for it.

"I absolutely love it. You are the best brother ever." She opened her arms for a hug, and Richard took it, with him on his knees and her still sitting in the chair, a position that made him feel much smaller, much more like a little girl. She kissed him on the top of the head. "And if you see any more like that in there, you do the same thing to them, okay, Sunshine?" He agreed happily and went back to his coloring, and Zoe decided to keep her playlist going in her ears, reading the Squad chat (the reactions to the photo were of amusement and complete understanding) while he laid on the floor like a little kid, his bare feet kicking back and forth in the air as he innocently colored in many other pictures, including an Easter one of little bunnies hopping around, with lots of added flowers (one with a rabbit bite mark on it) and a big smiling sun, and a Christmas one that he spent a lot of time on.

It began as a picture of a fireplace and a tree, with chairs and a sofa facing the fireplace, and Richard began coloring it in before he went for the flesh tones and began creating human figures. Zoe watched him, the music playing in her ears, but said nothing. He drew a blonde head sticking out from the chair, a short, red-haired girl wearing pink and hanging up a stocking, a brown-haired girl in a blue dress opening a present, and a head with brown hair in pigtails next to a head with long, black hair on the sofa.

"Leslie's hanging up the stockings by herself," Zoe said when he was done.

"She should be able to by Christmas," Richard replied, and Zoe clutched the necklace that Susie had given her, one of the matching necklaces that she and her girlfriend nearly always wore. She couldn't resist the urge to hug him again. She paused the video, laid down on the floor with him, put her left arm around him in a solid embrace, and started helping him color the next page with her right.

That was how they spent most of the afternoon together. There were a whole fifty pages that the six-year-old Zoe had left uncolored, and the teenagers took more time together than Richard would have alone, having happily childish discussions about what color should go where. Occasionally, they didn't agree, and swapped the decision-making, leading to a silly patchwork of coloring that looked just like a real kid had gone through it. Under normal circumstances, both of them would actually have been a bit snippy about that sort of thing, but it was just a kid's coloring book after all and their defenses towards one another were basically gone.

Zoe's phone buzzed when they were mostly done. It was Robert, who had texted to inform the siblings that the blackmailing pedophile was in the process of being arrested. "Looks like it's safe to go out in the sunshine, Sunshine," Zoe said, smiling. "Want to get some ice cream?"

"Sure!" Richard beamed happily.

His pink socks didn't go with the yellow very well, and it was too warm out for tights, and they both realized that Richard needed more cute socks to go with his shoes. Zoe found a pair of stretchy, ruffled socks that she'd never worn and that could be made to fit around his feet, and he put on his Mary Janes. She gripped one of his hanging straps, as if to make sure that he wouldn't wander off, and he didn't mind at all.

Their phones were in Zoe's pockets along with the money she'd been able to save up with her limited allowance. It was a sad joke, really, especially compared to Susie's seemingly limitless supply of unearned cash. It was basically symbolic, a few dollars here and there with the very occasional five thrown in, and over the course of a month, she only got enough to head to the convenience store a dozen blocks away and take her little sissy brother out for ice cream. Zoe was both jealous of Susie's limitless supply of unearned cash and grateful for the generosity that she had shown with it, and she wondered if Susie even had to ask for it or if her dad just handed her a fat suitcase full of twenties as soon as he got home.

It was six blocks from their suburb to the main road. They were passed by a bicyclist on the sidewalk, who went to the grass to get out of their way, and he was the same guy who Richard had seen before and they knowingly smiled at one another.

They were caticorner from the store, waiting for a walk signal to go one way or the other, when a police car pulled next to them. Almost on a lark, Richard looked to see who was in the back seat of the cop car and holy crap, it couldn't have been, but it was, it was actually him, it was actually the pedo. "Zoe!" Richard whispered quickly, pointing, and the siblings and the blackmailer stared at each other for a split second.

Richard flipped him the double deuce, then, inspired, he clenched his left fist and used his right to point to the man. Then, he curled the fingers of his right hand and extended the middle finger of his left, pushing that finger into the hole made by the curled fingers, and his fingers were too tightly curled for it to go in, but that finger was being forced in anyway.

Knowing exactly what that symbolized, the blackmailer looked Richard in the eyes, and, despite him wearing a shirt proclaiming him to be Little Miss Sunshine and his sister still holding on to him, there was no mercy whatsoever in those eyes.

When he had been arrested, the man had thought that someone else must have intercepted the envelope, that the little skipping sweetheart he had seen had been oblivious to his attempt at building a relationship. Only then did he have some idea of who he had messed with, the enormity of the mistake he had made. He began to sob. The light turned green, and the cop car drove away, the siblings crossing the street at the same time.

"That was a major coincidence," Richard said, a bit spooked once he thought about it.

"Not really," Zoe replied, shrugging. "We left as soon as Robert said that fuckclown was getting arrested, it takes the cops time to do it, and we're going the same way." If they had kept going, they would have eventually made it to the local semi-downtown area and the police station on the other side of town.

They crossed the larger street to get to the convenience store with the attached ice cream shop, and Richard's very first thoughts were 'Have we even been here before? Why don't we come here more often?' The answers were, of course, that a convenience store a dozen blocks away wasn't particularly convenient for kids who didn't bicycle, and their mother could buy a gallon of ice cream for what two scoops cost there.

Richard's outfit attracted a bit of attention from the few people in the store, and the college-aged cashier gave the siblings a big, inviting smile as soon as she saw them. "So what will you be having today?" she asked in a friendly tone.

"I'll have one scoop of dark chocolate and one of rocky road with a waffle cone," Zoe replied.

The cashier turned to Richard with a big smile on her face. "And what would you like?" she asked in that happily condescending voice reserved for talking to small children.

Richard had no idea what the girl thought or knew he really was and decided he didn't care. "A cone and a scoop of mint chocolate and a scoop of strawberry, please!" he chirped in the happiest, sweetest voice he could.

"Mint chocolate and strawberry! Delicious. Would you like sprinkles?" the cashier asked, smiling.

"Yes, please!" Richard chirped.

"All right, lots of extra sprinkles, just for you."

To keep up the act, Zoe was going to remind him to thank her, but he'd already chirped "Thank you!" once she handed him his cone.

"You're very welcome." The cashier turned to his sister. "That'll be eleven-oh-five." Zoe fished exact change out of her pocket, then took Richard by the strap again to pull him to an outside bench far from anyone. She didn't know what the cashier thought about Richard, but she wanted to talk to him normally and it'd ruin the act if anyone else heard.

Zoe chuckled. "Wow, she really went full on with that. I wonder how much she knew." The girl hadn't treated Richard like a ten-year-old; she treated him more like he was half that age.

Richard nodded. "I kinda wish everyone would talk to me like that," he said quietly. What other boys would have found belittling and insulting, he felt care and comfort in. "I mean, it doesn't make sense all the time, but, just, as much as possible."

"Oh? Well, then, I guess I can try," Zoe replied in the voice he'd asked for. "I'll treat Little Miss Sunshine just like the little sissy she loves to be." Richard smiled as he ate his ice cream - the sprinkles on the strawberry were very deliciously sweet - and, chuckling, Zoe shook her head. "That's actually pretty tough to keep up," she said in a normal voice.

The two of them sat together for a while, enjoying their ice cream, and Zoe thought for a bit before deciding if she actually wanted to talk about what she'd been thinking about. She hoped she wouldn't ruin the mood just by bringing it up, and she looked around and decided to just go for it. "There's a reason why I picked ice cream," she said quietly, and Ricky turned to look at her. "You remember that time you'd got ice cream on yourself, and I started name calling, and you just went fuck this and went upstairs?"

Richard had decided long ago that he'd never bring that up, and he'd gradually kind of forgotten about it, but she'd jogged his memory. "Oh, yeah, that. That was..." He shook his head. He didn't want to blame himself and he didn't want to blame her either, they'd both been a lot younger. "On the day that happened, there were there four kids picking on this other kid in school, the teacher was out for some stupid reason, so we're all just sitting around talking. I forget what they did to him, but they're just standing around his desk, I know they saying some nasty stuff to him, and what really got me was that he was just keeping on talking to them like nothing was wrong, like this was normal. I didn't understand, I still don't. If he would have just done something, or called for help, they might have stopped or someone else would have done something, maybe me, but they all just kept going. Then I promised myself that if somebody ever picked on me like that, I wouldn't keep talking to them like they were my friends."

That made the whole thing make a lot more sense to Zoe. "And then I picked on you that same day."

Richard nodded. "I was keeping a promise to myself, I felt like I'd be betraying myself if I ever talked to you again. Mom came up to me, I think it was like ten days or something, and she was... actually pretty scared. She just said it was over, that I shouldn't keep going with this, I think she threatened to take me to a counselor if I didn't start talking to you again." Zoe nodded. "The funny part is, all four kids had gotten suspended the day after they did that. Somebody must have said something or maybe they did something else. Somebody came from the office and told them to come with her, I didn't see them again for a while." He could recall the exact moment some of the kids in the class had gone 'You're in troooouble!'

Zoe decided that an apology would have been worthless and made no comment on his reactive nature. Instead, she chose to say what had been kicking around in her head, and she lowered her voice. "I just keep thinking that if I'd been nicer to you, we could have been doing this for a long time."

Richard shook his head. "No way, I would have been way too scared to ever tell you about it. I mean, I always kind of wanted to do it, but it would have been way too scary. Even, just like, in the house." Zoe nodded in understanding. It had taken a lot of incubation for Richard's soft side to hatch properly. Despite the fact that he was less passable as a little girl at 13 than 9, Zoe didn't even want to imagine what he might have become if someone had tried to hatch it before he was ready.

Still, if she had been a better sister, she might have been able to help him incubate it. "I still just wish I'd had your trust a lot sooner," she lamented. Instead of replying, he scooted closer to her on the bench and ate every last bite of his waffle cone. Neither of them was sure if it was worth the money, but it had definitely been delicious.

As they walked home together, Zoe still holding on to one of his straps, she remembered what she had told him when she was furious with him, that the little sissy in her Christmas dress was who he was and would always be. It had become a real truth. Even if he grew to be quite a bit taller than her and put on enough muscle to be twice her weight, which was very possible given what their father had looked like in his prime, it wouldn't matter. He very much had the same relationship with the rest of the Squad, particularly his girlfriend, and unless something truly awful happened, he would always and forever be their sweet little sissy. Zoe smiled at the thought of Richard lifting her with one hand and Susie with the other while wearing a pretty dress fitted just for him.

When they were almost home, a small hissing sound came from Richard's backside. Zoe laughed loudly. "Milk and sugar!" Richard explained, and Zoe just laughed louder, and he frowned a bit. "People fart, Zoe."

Seeing her sweet little brother frowning in his pigtails and pretty yellow outfit was one of the cutest things she had ever seen in her life, but she felt like she was picking on him and she really didn't want to pick on him, and it took very little effort to make herself poot out her own gas. She giggled. "Yup, people fart," she replied and kissed him on the nose.

The two of them finished their coloring book together, with the occasional bathroom break, and then it was about time for Mom to get home and so Richard, very reluctantly, changed back into his boy clothes. He had loved being Little Miss Sunshine so much, loved being given a coloring book to play with, loved being looked after by his big sister, loved being treated like a five-year-old who needed someone to hold on to him so that he wouldn't get lost. When he was actually that age, part of him had enjoyed it but most of him had been mistrustful of anyone who treated him like that, as he'd felt bullied and humiliated, and he had been so circumspect and fearful of such situations that he didn't really want to interact with people at all, and his mother and sister had never understood why and he couldn't remember clearly. Now that he was in close relationships with people who loved him and anyone who tried to actually bully or humiliate him was in for at least one very unpleasant surprise, he was much more appreciative of being treated little.

Their mother came home later than they'd expected, knocking on the door so that they could open it with her carrying two piles of heavy bags, and then she told them to put away the groceries. She'd had a long, tiring, and sweaty day. She still didn't quite understand what was going on with her children, who had been sitting on the couch watching anime together - had they ever done that before? - but at least they were willing to help her put food in the refrigerator and sort the mail.

Sorting groceries was simpler than sorting laundry: frozen in the freezer, cold stuff and all fruits and veggies in the fridge, everything else in the pantry. Richard checked the mail, mostly junk, and his heart lurched, a lump in his throat. One of the letters was for him! A closer look at it relaxed his attitude. It was from the city, not the major downtown but the local area, and he blinked in confusion. He briefly entertained the idea that someone had faked it and that there was anthrax in there, but he saw nothing when trying to peer through the envelope. He decided to stop being paranoid and carefully ripped open the top.

Inside was a check, made out to him, for two hundred and fifty dollars.

His sister looked over at him. "What is it?"

He looked at the ripped top. It had been postmarked Monday, and the local post office was good at getting local letters delivered. So, it obviously wasn't about anything that happened that day, what could... of course! He was being dumb, it wasn't about turning in the pedo, but it WAS about...

"It's snitch money," Richard replied, laughing. He heard the shower running so he didn't yell upstairs to his mother.

"Why is there no explanation?" Zoe asked, starting to giggle.

Richard knew this one. "Because it's snitch money, if there was a guy who didn't want to be known as a snitch, if they put something in there, then everyone looking over his shoulder would go 'hey, this guy's a snitch.'"

"Right, I get it," Zoe said, gradually laughing harder. "Leslie's going to just..." She pulled out her phone, and Richard did the same.

[5:57 PM] Zoe: LMAO  
[5:57 PM] Zoe: check this spaghetti out  
[5:58 PM] Zoe: the city PAID RICKY $250, there's no note, it must have been for turning leslie's bio parents in  
[5:59 PM] Leslie: ROFLLLLLLL  
[5:59 PM] Zoe: this is the icing on the cake  
[6:00 PM] Leslie: my dad just came in and asked what i was laughing so hard at  
[6:01 PM] Leslie: now HE'S starting to laugh  
[6:01 PM] Zoe: I legit want to send your bio parents a picture of the check with ```This is how much your lives were really worth, fuckfaces!!```  
[6:02 PM] Leslie: OMG you and your brother ARE related LMAOOO  
[6:02 PM] Zoe: Susie, before you say anything, it's not about how much, it's that THE GOVERNMENT PAID HIM FOR IT  
[6:03 PM] Leslie: Paid for mowing but it's not grass

Richard and his sister both laughed.

[6:03 PM] Zoe: BRUTAL HOW DID YOU GET SO BRUTAL  
[6:03 PM] Richard: Leslie's sounding like 4chan lmao  
[6:04 PM] Caroline: so they didn't give an excuse for the money?  
[6:04 PM] Leslie: I wonder where I could have picked it up from?  
[6:04 PM] Caroline: usually with stuff like this they make it look like a welfare check

"Wow, she knows a lot about it," Zoe said. "Guess I shouldn't be surprised." Richard got his knowledge from the Internet. The people that Caroline worked with had more direct experiences with the underbelly of the world.

[6:05 PM] Zoe: All they sent was the check, nothing else.  
[6:06 PM] Caroline: probably because hes 13 and it was mailed to suburbia  
[6:06 PM] Caroline: ghetto would have been way different  
[6:06 PM] Caroline: anyway sunshine what will you spend it on?

Richard couldn't answer right away, because his mother was coming down the stairs. "Hey, Mom! I got snitch money!"

"What?"

He showed her the check. "The city paid me, there's no note or anything, it's got to be for me giving them that tip for that drug deal," Richard replied.

She took a pen from a cup on the table. "Sign the back of it, I'll cash this at the bank tomorrow," she told him, and he scrawled out his name. "That's certainly a pleasant surprise. I'm glad they gave you something. Maybe you'll spend it on me?" He stared at her, and she smiled. "That was a joke. What isn't a joke is that I have a somewhat elaborate dinner in mind tonight, and I will need both of you to help me with it." She was glad that her children agreed. She still felt like there was something else going on, but at least she could come home and not have even more things to deal with.

[6:08 PM] Richard: I have no idea lol. Making dinner.  
[6:09 PM] Leslie: Three potential housewives in one house.  
[6:09 PM] Caroline: omfg, better delete that before zoe reads it  
[6:09 PM] Leslie: Why? Even if the therapy works I still want her making me dinner :heart:  
[6:35 PM] Susie: I'm back. Was doing driving lessons with Dad. Reading chat.  
[6:37 PM] Susie: I think we found Ricky's new career lol!  
[6:38 PM] Susie: Rule 1 applies to MY money.  
[6:38 PM] Susie: btw Dad says I can have a credit card when I get married or turn 18 :/  
[6:40 PM] Susie: So I need to make one of those potentials a reality :hearts:  
[6:41 PM] Caroline: so when do you and rickys mom tie the knot?  
[6:41 PM] Susie: I KNEW I WAS SETTING MYSELF UP WHEN I SAID IT ARGHHH  
[6:41 PM] Leslie: L M F A O  
[7:00 PM] Zoe: Sure, I'll make you dinner, Leslie. You can be the main course :heart:  
[7:01 PM] Leslie: I guess that makes you dessert :heart:  
[7:01 PM] Caroline: i kind of want to say something bitchy but youre actually lightening my mood, ty for that  
[7:02 PM] Susie: So what was your actual dinner?  
[7:03 PM] Richard: Something called jjigae (awesome scrabble word). Mostly spam fried rice. We were getting in each other's way making it, lol  
[7:03 PM] Zoe: Literally too many cooks, at least mom had specific jobs for us  
[7:04 PM] Susie: SPAM fried rice??? The actual spam product?  
[7:05 PM] Caroline: really not that rare here susie  
[7:05 PM] Zoe: We followed the recipe right off Hormel's website.  
[7:05 PM] Leslie: I've never had any spam (salt).  
[7:06 PM] Susie: OMFG I HAVE TO RESCUE YOU BOTH  
[7:06 PM] Caroline: have you even actually had it?  
[7:06 PM] Susie: I smelled it once and once was enough!  
[7:07 PM] Zoe: we've had it all our lives but I can totally see where Susie is coming from.  
[7:07 PM] Richard: ^  
[7:08 PM] Caroline: car now has a third rule, no music, politics, or food arguments now

"Never heard of that rule," Richard said aloud, catching his mother's attention. He and his sister had gone from the dining room to the couch, and their mother was watching them use their phones, shaking her head at the state of modern American teenagers. So constantly attached to their gadgets. Didn't anything interesting ever happen in their lives? Then again, she had her own screen she liked to look at, and she went to play her own games.

"Never came up when you were around," Zoe replied. "I think it was the first time I was in Caroline's car, Susie told us her Rule 1, and Caroline said that she didn't play music because she didn't want anyone arguing over it, and she didn't want to deal with political stuff either. Funny because she was the one who started calling us the Squad."

[7:09 PM] Zoe: Could have used that rule yesterday, miss eveything burger  
[7:10 PM] Caroline: youre the ones who missed everything  
[7:10 PM] Richard: Ooooof.  
[7:10 PM] Leslie: Sssss.  
[7:10 PM] Zoe: :snake:  
[7:12 PM] Susie: Okay, I don't mean to interrupt this fascinating discussion of your barbaric and uncultured culinary practices, but I have something to tell Ricky and the rest of you about my dad.  
[7:13 PM] Susie: Well, it's more like instructions. Everyone just follow my lead when it comes to him, even if it seems kinda weird or not what you'd expect.  
[7:14 PM] Susie: It's probably just for Ricky but you all should know  
[7:14 PM] Susie: also ***HE MUST NEVER KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT RICKY'S DRESSING E V E R***  
[7:15 PM] Caroline: copy that

Richard nearly typed in 'Yes, Your Highness' before he remembered he was in a group chat.

[7:15 PM] Richard: I understand. :smile:  
[7:15 PM] Leslie: I guess the unexpected part comes later lol  
[7:15 PM] Zoe: Yes, we could guess that one :laughing:  
[7:16 PM] Caroline: btw i cant drive you friday  
[7:16 PM] Caroline: my dad just said he got a massive rush order and ill be helping him as much as i can  
[7:17 PM] Caroline: even with me like this  
[7:17 PM] Leslie: Mom can take me. Thanks for saying so early :slight_smile  
[7:17 PM] Richard: I'll WALK if I have to.  
[7:17 PM] Zoe: I'll be walking with him.  
[7:18 PM] Caroline: isnt there heavy rain and wind forecast for friday?  
[7:18 PM] Richard: **I'll WALK if I have to.**  
[7:18 PM] Zoe: **I'll be walking with him.**  
[7:19 PM] Leslie: :heart:  
[7:19 PM] Susie: :heart:  
[7:19 PM] Leslie: Actually Mom can take you.  
[7:20 PM] Leslie: Maybe you'll tell her how you keep getting mixed up in bad stuff.  
[7:20 PM] Richard: I have no idea. I'm a monster magnet or something.  
[7:21 PM] Caroline: SPAAAAAACE LORD MOTHER MOTHER  
[7:21 PM] Caroline: none of you will ever get that ignore me

The Y was about four miles away, and not for the first time in his life, Richard regretted never being into cycling, nor was he familiar with the local buses, and Zoe simply regretted not having more friends with cars. Discomfort, though, was something that didn't even concern him when it came to Susie, and Zoe apparently felt the same way about her girlfriend.

The two of them continued watching their show together, and boy clothes or girl clothes, physically bigger or smaller, Richard knew that he would always be a good little sissy for his big sister.


	12. Dumb, Not Stupid

"Time to get up, Sunshine," Zoe told Richard, zapping him awake with the shock collar around his neck. He stood up and his Little Miss Sunshine outfit was the only bright thing in the room; everything else was dark. "Let's see what we've got for you today," his sister said, rooting through his nearly pitch-black closet. "One of these, a couple of these, one of these, and one of these." She jammed a corset over him, and the flesh that was on his midsection went immediately to his breasts and ass, his ribs crushed. His feet were shoved into ballet boots, and shocks were used to keep him upright. A disc went around his waist, and he knew that if it touched anything, he'd be shocked heavily and for a long time. His mother and sister cooperated in shoving the gag, which looked like a scoop of ice cream, into his mouth.

"Stop squirming, we're just trying to help you," his mother told him firmly. "It's to make you a better person, Richard. You're much easier to carry this way and your new father will appreciate having a son like you." The pedophile who had tried to blackmail him was standing there, naked and smiling. NO, Richard thought, there was NO way she'd do that, NO way he could be...

Wait, there really was actually no way!

Richard, suddenly aware of where he was and what he was doing, tore the collar off with one hand, the bondage melting off of him, and pointed with the other, and the man screamed as he was immolated. His mother and sister stared at him with empty, hollow eyes, but of course it wasn't actually them, and he rocketed himself into wakefulness with anger and disgust.

"Just get fucked," Richard muttered to his subconscious, pissed that it had even fed him such a thing. He could have had a flying dream, a video game dream, even a really weird dream with lots of interesting imagery, but no, he just had to have a nightmare about that crap instead. It was still dark out, and, annoyed with himself, he went back to a dreamless sleep.

Even after a morning shower and brushing teeth and combing his long hair (his mother told him that he could have it as long as he liked as long as it was combed), he looked haggard as he slowly ate breakfast that morning.

His sister was going to wait until their mother was gone before asking him what was up, but Heather had noticed as well. "Richard, is something wrong?"

"Real bad dream," he said.

"What about?" Heather asked.

There was no way he was going to tell her much of anything. "People hated me while pretending to love me," he said. "I went lucid and hated one of them back. It was real bad, I don't want to talk about it."

His mother patted him on the shoulder and kissed him on the head. "It was just a dream, Richard." She'd had bad dreams of her own. A primary recurring theme was her husband, gaunt from drug abuse, pursuing her in the darkness like in a horror movie. Sometimes, he would get her on drugs as well. Other times, he would simply consume her alive. And her children - far younger than in real life - were always there, watching it happen. She would never tell them that they had such a prominent place in her recurring nightmares.

"So, what was the dream actually about?" Zoe asked him once their mother had left for work.

"It was kind of about the stuff we've been doing, and I really don't want to talk about it." He looked away for a moment. "Zoe, have you ever considered the idea that my sissiness might need to be forced out? I mean out into the open, not out of me. Like, if you somehow made me do sissy stuff or pushed me into doing it even if I didn't want to, that I'd become a better person for it?"

The question was so jarring and utterly alien that Zoe blanked for a second. "Ricky, I have literally never thought that about you or anyone in my entire life. Even when I was pissed at you, I just wanted revenge, I didn't think it'd make you a better person or anything like that, that's sick." She thought of what their mother had done to her and decided not to mention it; Heather certainly wouldn't try it on him, at any rate. "I know that you and Susie are doing kinda bondage sex stuff but that's different, and she won't even lock you into anything, remember? You know Leslie doesn't see things that way and neither does Caroline." She almost asked 'Where are you getting this from?' but she had a reasonable guess as to the answer. What he needed at the moment was reassurance, and she had plenty of that to give. "Nobody is ever going to do anything like that to you. Ricky, this is you we're talking about, nobody CAN. You wasted the last guy who tried anything close, well okay that was Robert, but still, you."

"I wasted him in the dream when I went lucid, too," Richard said, smiling a bit.

"See? It was just a stupid nightmare caused by some demented shit you saw on the Internet. I can't tell you that you're totally safe from everything in the world, but you're safe from THAT."

"Zoe, I needed that. Thank you so much," he said, smiling. "You want to do some more fun stuff, like yesterday?" Richard felt like he was spitting in the nightmare's face by asking.

"I've actually got a major backlog I want to catch up on today, but if you want to just hang out and chill for a while, we can."

Richard smiled a bit. His sister needed some time to herself, and just knowing that reminded him that she was a normal person. "It's okay, do your backlog. Do you have any more outfits like that Sunshine one in your closet?"

"I checked, there's nothing else back there that will fit you. We're doing wash tomorrow, I think Mom's got a couple of dresses in there."

"Eeeeeewwww," Richard replied. The idea of wearing his mother's clothes was just plain disturbing.

"Yeah, I figured you'd say that." She put her arm around him, hugging him protectively. "Your big sister is going to go read some healthy and fun stuff. Well, maybe not totally healthy." She giggled a bit. "You wear whatever you want, little sis, and try to stay out of the darkness for a while."

"I will," Richard replied, smiling at her with renewed innocence. He felt like he'd puked rotten garbage all over himself and she'd cleaned him up.

Richard put on his floral print housewife dress and his pink, jingly socks just because he liked how they sounded and felt, deciding not to put on his heels and to leave his hair loose for the moment. He sat at his computer, considering how he was going to spend his time. He wasn't in the mood for games - he wasn't even in the mood for fiction of any kind. He wanted to stay out of the darkness like his sister had recommended. He started browsing around, and he remembered what he'd been into and decided he wanted to get back to. He was going to teach himself to become a real hacker!

Of course, searching 'how to be a hacker' wasn't actually going to help him, and he knew that. Instead, he just immersed himself in every piece of computer lore he could find, learning about opcodes, buffer overruns, cryptography, Ring -3, and TCP/IP, soaking it all up, meditating in a sense, trying not to think about that other stuff, occasionally jingling the bells on his socks and smiling. He was struggling to understand things and he was confused some of the time and he was at peace with himself. If he couldn't understand something, he moved on to something else. It was his angry focus without the anger.

Zoe called him for lunch, snapping him out of his trance, and he actually frowned when he realized she'd already microwaved the burritos they both liked. "I guess there's not really anywhere else to eat within walking distance anyway, just the ice cream place," he lamented. His guts were a little bit sick of ice cream.

"Why'd you want to eat out?" she asked.

"I've got a bunch of money I haven't spent, too," he reminded her. "And Mom's giving me two hundred and fifty bucks when she gets home." He looked at her solemnly, and she smiled at him in his pretty dress. He looked so serious after having jingled down the stairs. "You've done so much for me, Zoe. Especially this morning. I kind of want to spend it on you." In a way, he wanted to reward her for what she wasn't doing, would never consider doing, to him.

"I'd like some of it, but I think you should spend at least some on Susie."

"Why?! What could I possibly buy her that she could want and not have bought already?"

She chuckled. "You don't understand girls, Ricky. You can't buy her something she can't just buy herself. You can only buy her something she didn't know she wanted until you bought it for her. I know, it's tough, but you don't have to even plan it. Just, next time you're somewhere, even the thrift store, and you see something she might want or that just seems to be missing from her house, ask her if she likes it, then buy it for her. You know how you hear people say 'it's the thought that counts'? That's the thought that counts."

"That's twice today you've really helped me."

She smiled at him. "It's like you've totally forgotten who owes who here. You probably saved my girlfriend's life just last week, remember? I'm just glad to be able to help you, little sis. I'm still on my backlog today, but we can spend some more time together tomorrow before Leslie's mom comes to pick us up." She was reading an exceptionally convoluted and wordy fic about some high school kid who got sent to a fantasy world that was more or less of his own making.

"Okay. Thanks again." The siblings smiled at each other and returned to what they had been doing. Richard barely remembered in time to change back to boy clothes before his mother got home, and after giving Richard his money, Heather asked her children to set the table - and scratch her back, which her daughter reluctantly did - as soon as she got home. She'd had a bad itch she just couldn't reach for hours, and rubbing hadn't helped.

She didn't want to have to keep asking her kids, she knew she had a backscratcher somewhere in the house, but where did she put the thing? It wasn't in her drawers, she knew that. Of course! She knew her children's closets were full of storage. It was probably stashed away in there somewhere. Making sure not to touch Richard's computer at all - that was where he kept his private stuff, after all - she went through his closet and started opening boxes.

"Richard, could you come here please?"

Even before she'd finished the first couple of words, Richard was immediately rushing to his room, his sister close behind, knowing immediately what had happened just from her tone of voice. Many of the boxes had been opened, and she was holding up the housewife dress he'd worn that day. He'd thought of various things to say to her when she found out, but all he managed to say was the most basic: "Mom, I dress up sometimes, but I don't actually want to turn into a girl."

Her tone was very serious. "Where did you get it all? Does Susie know about this?"

Abruptly, Richard laughed. "Think really carefully about those two questions, Mom," he said, smirking, and she stared at him. "Don't they kind of answer each other?" Heather relaxed somewhat, her major concerns gone. Her first worry had been that he was stealing from her or someone else to be able to get such things, or doing even worse things for the money - maybe even with those skills of his! - and she'd also been worried that this would turn his wealthy girlfriend off. Apparently, the opposite was true. "It's... basically how we met," he continued before she could ask anything else awkward. "Don't ask specifics. Please?" Heather's own parents had pried too much into her own affairs when she was a teenager, and she understood where he was coming from. "I'm just having fun, that's all, and she is too."

"I'm sure of the sort of fun you've been having with her," she said, returning the dress to the box where she found it. "Have you been having any of this fun outside?" He nodded. "Zoe, do you... of course you know. You've been participating in this as well." Zoe nodded. "All your friends know. He's been doing it with your whole group, hasn't he?" She continued to nod. The idea gave Heather some comfort. Doing perverted things with one's significant other was different from doing them in public - she'd done things with their father that she would never tell them about - and Richard certainly couldn't be doing anything really perverted or off-putting in a group of four girls while still remaining their friend.

"Not all the time, though, not tomorrow," Richard said, holding up a placating hand. "Susie's dad's home, and he's going to be there with us at the YMCA at 3. It's Leslie's physical therapy day."

"Susie bought you those swimming trunks, too," Heather said, and her son nodded. She sighed. "Well, I have some more personal time. I'll drive you over there. I haven't been swimming in a while, either."

Richard was mortified at the idea. "Mom, we've already got a ride, and if you tell him about any of this-"

"First, you can tell your other ride that it isn't necessary. Second, I might be dumb, but I'm not stupid, Richard," his mother stated firmly, cutting him off. He still looked nervous and Heather knew exactly what he was worried about. "Your mother is not going to make a fool of herself or you in front of your girlfriend's father!" Her own mother had almost done exactly that. If that woman had been any worse, Richard and Zoe might very well have never been born.

"I don't even think he knows she's my girlfriend, Mom."

"If you're spending any time with her in front of him, believe me, he'll find out." Richard had to acknowledge that she was right. He was very good at roleplaying, as Susie could certainly attest, but convincingly roleplaying 'not her boyfriend' for an hour - with both of them wearing very few clothes! - in front of a man who was surely very suspicious of any male anywhere remotely near his daughter? No, that was not going to happen. Not showing up would have been even worse.

"And, Mom, while we're at it," Zoe suddenly said, "I'm bisexual, and Leslie is my girlfriend." Richard looked at his sister in alarm. She had chosen to drop that on her mother when she was in the middle of processing what was with him. Why had she done it then? To take the heat off him? To make it seem like a minor thing in comparison? (The answer was somewhat of both. Zoe figured that both at once would be faster and have fewer consequences than one at a time.)

Heather took a deep breath, looking at her daughter in shock. "This is what Robert meant," she realized. "He meant this. He knew about you, both of you."

"Yup, he did," Zoe replied.

Heather almost asked 'Why didn't you just tell me?' but realized that the question was foolish. Her children didn't entirely trust her. That was why they'd looked at her that way last week. In a rush, she also realized that as Richard had known so much about the sort of horrible place where her brother had almost sent his cousin, he must have been worried that she would do the same. Granted, the boy was just thirteen and prone to overreacting, but why had he ever imagined that she would do such a thing?! Was she that bad of a mother - maybe she was? Her emotions started getting the better of her. First that, now this. Her tolerance for the unusual was far below that of her children, and she felt like her moral foundations were shifting out from under her. "I need time to think," she said, trying not to cry. "You two just stay up here, and I'll call you for dinner, and we can talk about this then."

Zoe almost said something apologetic, that she didn't really want to stress her out, but then she remembered the thing with the unwanted dresses and that nasty email from her cousin and decided that this was a modest and appropriate revenge. "All you have to do is nothing, Mom," Richard said. He'd been thinking of that one for some time.

[5:22 PM] Richard: Mom knows everything. About Zoe and Leslie, too.  
[5:22 PM] Zoe: She's processing it all.  
[5:23 PM] Zoe: If she does something REALLY stupid this might be the last time you hear from us for a while.  
[5:23 PM] Richard: Until Friday, she actually said she wants to drive us.  
[5:24 PM] Zoe: Yeah, hopefully she actually does that and isn't building to a super freakout.  
[5:24 PM] Leslie: I just told Mom all that. She and Dad wish you luck.  
[5:24 PM] Caroline: wishing you luck here too  
[5:24 PM] Susie: Good luck, Ricky and Zoe!! :hearts:  
[5:25 PM] Richard: Thanks, everybody. I think we'll be okay.  
[5:25 PM] Caroline: lets be real here if she tries anything you'll crater her and she has to know that  
[5:26 PM] Susie: I don't want it to come to that.  
[5:26 PM] Richard: I don't either, I REALLY don't want to use that on our mom.  
[5:27 PM] Zoe: She doesn't hate us too much and we won't hate her too much, it's that simple.  
[5:27 PM] Zoe: And if she does anything "for our own good" it's fucking asteroid time  
[5:29 PM] Richard: Zoe just said that she'll probably just tell me to give the dresses away. One of you can pick them up.  
[5:29 PM] Zoe: It's ME we're both more worried about. Her fucking BROTHER was about to send his kid to torture prison, remember  
[5:30 PM] Richard: Astronauts will know what happened if she does that, they'll see the crater from space  
[5:30 PM] Zoe: She's my mom, and I have no idea what she's thinking. That actually hurts a lot.  
[5:31 PM] Susie: I always know what my dad is thinking. He told me I should. I wish your mom was the same. :(  
[5:31 PM] Richard: She just called us for dinner in a nice voice BBL

Heather felt like she was in a Twilight Zone episode and wished for her child to enjoy being feminine. 'Granted!' the monkey's paw had replied. 'It's your son!' Of course, that didn't help her decide what to do. She vividly recalled a scene at her workplace five years ago, in which an angry, stern member of upper management had asked a tantruming worker, "What are you trying to gain here? What do you hope to accomplish by doing this?" What could she do that her children wouldn't hate her for?

She certainly knew what Martin - who she was starting to consider an incredibly nasty person, worse than the boy she remembered - would have recommended. He had wanted to punish her son just for telling him and his family things that he didn't want them to hear. His answer would have been to forcibly stop their behavior with heavy-handed means, and a part of Heather was suggesting that she ought to be doing the same thing. But her children weren't his, and they certainly weren't behaving in the way that Michael was. Despite their mistrust (and fear, she had to admit) of her, they didn't even conflict with each other anymore!

What was she thinking? Was she really about to ruin her own family, destroying her relationships with all she had left of her husband, because her son enjoyed dressing up like a girl with his friends - and his luxuriously rich girlfriend enjoyed him doing it! - and her daughter had a teenage girl-crush? (She didn't really believe - didn't want to believe - that Zoe had permanent lesbian tendencies that she wouldn't simply grow out of.) Heather thought again of what Robert had told her and abruptly remembered why she'd been talking to him on Friday to begin with - she'd just given her son the money he'd earned for doing that! Good God, was she really about to piss off Richard to no good end?! The boy could destroy people!

She might have been dumb, but she was certainly not stupid!

"Dinner's ready," she shouted upstairs, acting like as much of a mother as she could, and her very worried-looking children came down. Heather had mixed spam and peas in with standard macaroni and cheese, with tall glasses of water to wash down the salt, and her children quietly sat down to eat.

She took a breath. "Zoe, if you and Leslie have real feelings for each other, then I'm not going to interfere with that. As long as what you are doing is safe - and I know she is disabled - I am not going to be angry with you." She sighed in defeat. "It's your life, and it's your choice. Just be careful, and don't put any pressure on her. It's her life too."

Zoe breathed an enormous sigh and laughed slightly in pure relief. "I won't, Mom." She still couldn't forget any of the nasty shit that her mother had done to her, but the hatchet could stay well and truly buried if her mother wasn't going to get between her and Leslie. Richard was confused for a bit. Pressure? Leslie wasn't that bad off, she didn't bruise easily or anything like that... oh. His mother had meant emotional pressure. That wasn't going to happen, either.

"As for you, Richard, as long as Susie isn't going to try to put you on hormones or something like that," Heather started.

"The hell, Mom, what stories have you been reading?!" Richard blurted out, interrupting her, before his mind caught up with him and he realized that there was no way she was remotely coming from that point of view. "She's not crazy."

"Well, as it turns out, neither am I. So, as long as it's safe, I don't care what kind of fun you have together. And that goes for both of you." Heather felt a weight lifted from her shoulders as she said that. She remembered her own parents all too well. She felt like she was getting gradually hedged out of her children's lives, and they were so young, and she remembered how her own mother had tried to worm her way into her own life - that word 'vicarious' again - and how it hadn't helped at all. She wasn't going to be the queen bitch. She wasn't going to be the one to blame. Not again. And she certainly wasn't going to be like that prick older brother of hers! She had her children and they had her and that was all there was to it. She shook her head. He was just so young. "Richard, I know that this thing of yours makes you think you're invincible. There's just so much that can happen to you, you're not Superman."

His mother was giving him what he wanted, so he tried not to get angry with her for basically suggesting that he was the kind of teenage moron his cousin was. "I've learned this one, Mom. Believe me, I know. I'm not going to do anything too stupid and especially not alone." How could he possibly tell her that he'd learned that very lesson in an up-close way just yesterday? He was very glad that no one would tell her - she really would freak out if she heard about that!

Instead, Heather was worried that Susie would get tired of him and then do something like expose his secret to people at Richard's school when it reopened. She was dumb, not stupid, so she refrained from saying something like that out loud - he was in love with her, he would be mortally offended by the idea. And society itself was changing so fast, so much activism for causes she'd never even heard of before, maybe it wouldn't even hurt him socially? The heartbreak would, she knew, much more than any exposure, but she certainly wasn't not going to tell him not to date the rich girl because she might break up with him later! Besides, he certainly wasn't emotionally vulnerable in the sense that he could be easily bullied or picked on. The boy was fearsome to adults! God help the child who picked on him, no matter how he liked to look! Wait, how did he like to look? "Richard, if you would like to, I want to see you wearing your favorite outfit. Would you please go and change into it after you have finished your dinner?" Her tone of voice was as polite as she could make it. Especially after her foolishness with her daughter, if her son thought that she was telling him rather than asking him to do a thing like that...!

Richard was startled by the request. He was certain that a mother asking her son to dress up was something that he would only ever see in unrealistic fantasies or outright abuse. 'I'm not going to dress up for my mom!' was, of course, an option, and one he almost took. He turned to Zoe, who was surprised, delighted, and extremely amused, giving him an enormous grin. If he could start openly dressing so cutely full-time at home, then there would be fewer things stopping her from treating him like her little sissy brother the way they both enjoyed. Well, of course, when Susie wasn't treating him the way she wanted.

"Okay," Richard replied. He almost added 'No pictures', but that would have been silly. There was no one in the world that she could have shown such things to, and if she later were to go crazy enough to try to blackmail him with them, it would be like threatening to light herself on fire. He decided to enjoy his food instead of worrying about impossibilities.

They ate quietly, in silence and general relief. It felt like they had all just signed an armistice to end the cold war. And then Richard, smiling a bit, went upstairs to change .

"I don't understand him at all," Heather quietly said to her daughter once his door closed. "How can someone so... well, you know how he was. So antisocial, so... protective of himself, so vengeful, he's still so..." She couldn't think of a word that both matched what he was and she actually wanted to say about him. "...and now he wants to be at least a little bit feminine?"

"Mom, that's WHY he's like that. You know those animals with the armor and the spikes on their backs, and they have soft underbellies? That's Ricky. The whole reason he has that stuff is to protect his soft side."

"And sometimes he can jump on someone's head," Heather replied, and Zoe groaned at her mom's videogame joke. Heather smiled and suddenly thought of a way to possibly patch things up with her daughter. "Speaking of people who need a softer viewpoint, perhaps it's Michael who should be wearing dresses." She was expecting good humor and reconciliation; instead, her daughter stared at her with alarm, almost panic.

"Don't ever say that!" Zoe whispered harshly. "If Ricky heard you say something like that, he'd freak!" She was freaking out a bit herself. Christ, that had been just like what he'd asked her after his nightmare!

"It was just a joke, Zoe," Heather softly replied, a bit startled and not understanding. The way her daughter was looking at her, she had just said something utterly offensive, and she made a serious effort to figure out how it could have been.

"God, you just don't get it," Zoe hissed in frustration. "It's not funny, and if you want to see his soft side, don't ever make him think that you want to do this as a punishment, to anyone, for any reason, ever!" She almost blurted out 'He'll KILL you, Mom!' Instead, she decided on "He'll just do that thing again instead!" She was watching his door upstairs to make sure it was still closed. How could she even begin to explain this?

Heather needed no explanation. "Or you would," she said softly. "I understand." She did understand, then, even better than her children did. Dressing so femininely, especially for a boy, obviously wasn't completely a sexual thing, but it was in that vicinity. Therefore, adding force to the equation was in the same general category as rape. What she had previously done to her daughter was completely unconscionable, extreme fraternity hazing at the very least, and she had basically just told a rape joke. "It's a very personal choice," she chose to say aloud, and Zoe heard all the regret and realization in her voice.

Richard's door opened, and Heather was surprised that there wasn't much to be surprised about, except for the colors on display. He wasn't wearing makeup, but he had done his own pigtails very well, a pair of rainbow ties holding his hair. Heather had worried that he was going to appear wearing something revealing or even pornographic, but instead he wore his full rainbow outfit, his dress against his knees and his gloves at his elbows, his socks and medium heels on his feet. He slowly walked downstairs, smiling the whole time but still slightly expecting his mother to freak out.

"Did you pick that outfit yourself?" Heather asked. They were appropriate first words to ask him, the first time she saw him dressed like that.

"Susie picked it for me, but it's still my favorite."

Heather nodded. "All right. If this is who you want to be, then this is who you should be. As long as it's tasteful and modest, you don't need to dress like a boy or a girl on my account," she said, clearly and carefully. What she had really been afraid of was that he would have looked like that one boy she'd seen on television, that boy whose mother allowed him - or urged him, or possibly even forced him - to wear revealing and rather disturbing outfits. What she saw in front of her was simply a cute hairstyle, what was almost just an extended shirt, a pair of tasteful, long boots, and fancy gloves that he was wearing just because she'd asked to see the outfit. "But I won't have you dressing like a slut in public, Richard, and so we're clear, that goes for both of you," she warned anyway. "That's too far."

Zoe just scoffed angrily, feeling doubly insulted but not replying. Richard's tone was mollifying. "Mom, I don't do that. Even, like, at the pool, you know what trunks Susie bought for me."

"I'm aware," Heather replied. "But now I need to know. Did you actually go where you said you were going?"

"We didn't lie to you, Mom," Zoe replied, annoyed. "Especially not about the pool, Leslie really has to be there on Tuesdays and Fridays and I really want to be there with her. We did go to the frolfing course, and he did get his socks and shoes muddy when carrying her over. What he was wearing sometimes wasn't what you expected, but it's actually where we went, every time."

"And made additional stops I was unaware of. I understand," Heather replied, knowing like she had to sound like as much of a parent, be as much of a parent, as she could. "I'm not a fool, Zoe. I knew that the two of you would start keeping things from me as you grew older, and I know that you're keeping things from me now. And I'm well aware that I've made awful mistakes as a mother, but I'm concerned about you, both of you, about your safety and about your health. I don't want you, either of you, to do anything that's going to ruin your lives later on down the road." She sighed, turning to Richard. "I don't want to be scared of you and I don't want you to be scared of me, either."

He chose his words carefully, trying not to be harsh at all. "Can we just not do bad stuff to each other anymore, Mom? Me or Zoe or you?" He wanted to say more, but he didn't know how to phrase it, and his words got caught in his throat.

Heather was expecting her son to promise something, to do something for her if she left them alone, and she suddenly remembered what she'd come home to last week. "You did all the chores like that, didn't you?" Richard found himself blushing as he nodded. "And you very much enjoyed it. You don't need to say anything, your mother understands. All right, then. No more bad stuff, no more forcing you to wear clothes you hate or attend social events with people you detest," she said, turning to Zoe. "I won't keep either of you from spending time with your friends or anything like that, I won't judge you for the way you are. But. The two of you have shown me that you are not normal teenagers. Therefore, I don't want to see any of the normal teenager crap from either of you. No drinking, no smoking, no lying - and I know you're not going to always tell me everything, that's different - keep your grades up, keep doing your chores however you're dressed doing them, keep the moody phases to a minimum, I know it's all hormones, no pointless arguments or teenager tantrums, you actually use those brains of yours and don't get into any dangerous situations, and above all, absolutely no drugs of any kind. I won't have any of that in this house or in my children. Do we have a deal?"

"Just one more thing, can you never, ever go through my closet ever again? I checked, there's nothing of yours back there," Richard said. He had been through every box in the closet while finding places to store his new wardrobe.

"Either of our closets," Zoe added firmly.

"I'll leave both of you your privacy, I can do that for you. Then do we have a deal?"

Richard glanced at his sister, who seemed much more annoyed than he did. "Deal," Zoe said after a bit. She wanted to slap her mother for her earlier 'slut' comment, but she was more than willing to just put this all to a permanent stop if she could be openly in love with her girlfriend without worry.

"Deal," Richard agreed.

"All right, then. This is our family now. I'll respect you and you'll respect me. I am concerned about one more thing. Richard, you said that this is what brought you and Susie together, and I won't ask details. But would the two of you still be together if you didn't allow her to dress you?"

The question cut to the quick, jarring his sense of self. Yes, they'd been doing a great many very intimate things, but was he really her boyfriend or more like her pet? If, one day, he had to be done with being a sissy, would she be just as done with him?

Zoe came to his rescue. "Mom, she loves him for who he is. Don't ask him if she'd love him if he was someone else, he doesn't know and she probably doesn't either."

"All right, that's fair," Heather replied. "Give your mother a hug." Both of her children leaned in to hug her, Zoe very slightly more reluctant than her brother. "I'm going to go relax now. I love you and I want the best for you. Both of you." She turned to Zoe. "Even if I'm sometimes so terrible at showing it." She went upstairs to play a monotonous game that would let her brain lose focus on everything else.

"My ass," Zoe muttered quietly once her mother was out of earshot. Her brother looked at her. "Never mind. It's fine, it's over, we don't have to worry anymore." They immediately went to give their friends the good news.

[5:35 PM] Leslie: Needing to wait for someone when you're worried about them is one of the worst things.  
[5:37 PM] Susie: It really is.  
[5:38 PM] Caroline: rickys been feeling the same about you, you must have figured this out  
[5:39 PM] Susie: I'm with my dad. Ricky's just waiting to be with me again. He's not waiting while worried. It's different.  
[5:42 PM] Leslie: I'm going to play games. I really can't sit here stressed. Zoe TEXT ME when you get this!!  
[5:44 PM] Susie: I'll stay in the chat, my dad'll be doing work stuff for another hour or two.  
[5:46 PM] Caroline: just sitting here watching a movie rn  
[6:03 PM] Richard: /tts We're back!  
[6:03 PM] Susie: OMG that made me jump  
[6:03 PM] Caroline: ok hacker boy howd you do that  
[6:03 PM] Leslie: Didn't even need the text! What was that?  
[6:03 PM] Zoe: lol I saw him do it  
[6:04 PM] Richard: ```/tts``` (text to speech) is great stuff. :smile: It all went fine, best it could have really! Wearing my rainbow dress right now :grin:  
[6:04 PM] Zoe: She ASKED to see it!  
[6:04 PM] Susie: I AM SO HAPPY RIGHT NOW!! :hearts:  
[6:05 PM] Zoe: Leslie **we don't need to hide from her anymore!!!**  
[6:05 PM] Caroline: this ended better than the movie did  
[6:05 PM] Richard: Yeah she made us a deal, we can do whatever as long as we don't get into regular teenager trouble like smoking or drugs or something  
[6:05 PM] Leslie: This is one of the best days ever, I am not even kidding  
[6:05 PM] Leslie: THE BAD THING we were so worried about WON'T HAPPEN  
[6:05 PM] Caroline: like the two of you were ever going to do regular bad teenager shit lol  
[6:05 PM] Zoe: IKR!! to both caroline and leslie (edited)  
[6:06 PM] Susie: And now Ricky can hang up all his pretty outfits and put his boy clothes away for special occasions :slight_smile: Like tomorrow lol  
[6:06 PM] Richard: Good idea! :)  
[6:07 PM] Leslie: I just want to know, this is just a question, Ricky did you threaten your mom at all?  
[6:08 PM] Richard: I tried not to. I think she was feeling a little threatened anyway, but I didn't give her any ultimatum or anything like that, btw SHE MUST NEVER KNOW ABOUT THE PEDO BLACKMAIL THING or she will **actually** have a heart attack.  
[6:09 PM] Zoe: It feels like she's doing what she thinks she has to do, not what she wants to do. If she doesn't go back on it, that's good enough for me.  
[6:09 PM] Richard: She actually said the word "deal" so we're good.  
[6:10 PM] Leslie: If this is all okay now, anyone for Cards Against Humanity?  
[6:10 PM] Richard: You play that?!  
[6:10 PM] Zoe: Ricky, if you and her get blank cards at the same time, SHE WILL WIN.

Neither Caroline nor Susie had played it before, and it was a very entertaining evening indeed.

Heather found her backscratcher before she went to bed. It was in her secretary in plain view, where it had been the whole time.


	13. What Doesn't Happen

Richard woke up from a pleasant smear of dreams with the light gently illuminating his room. Practically all his worries, most of which originated from his mother, had been consigned to the realm of never-would. He didn't have to worry about hiding his sissy side from his mother anymore, as she never would try to hurt him for it. He didn't have to worry about his mother doing something extraordinarily regrettable to Zoe anymore; she never would. Horrific things might be happening to other kids around the world for insane and stupid reasons, but nothing of that kind would ever happen to him, and he was thirteen years old and his sphere of real caring was mostly limited to himself and his friends, all of whom, he was sure, were protected by the same never-would shielding that he was. (He abruptly realized that he didn't know too much about Caroline's living situation, but the girl was astute and seventeen years old, worked in her father's shop, and had veterans for co-workers. There were plausible ways that she could get hurt, but the odds were low and she didn't have anything hanging over her head, except maybe car parts.)

No, his greatest worry was what would happen in their next CAH game. Leslie had won, as predicted, simply because she had a better handle on her friends' senses of humor than he did, and it had been an enormous laugh riot when both Leslie and Richard had played similarly transgressive responses to 'What gives me uncontrollable gas?'

Well, okay, he had one real worry: Susie's father. But Susie had given Richard a clear command to follow her lead in that respect, which was quite a bit better than not knowing what to do. He hoped she wouldn't inadvertently tell him to do the wrong thing, but she was the expert on this and he was not.

He showered, brushed, braided his hair into pigtails, and put on a simple, light yellow dress with a bit of lace around the collar and sleeves, and he happily went barefoot to have breakfast (real waffles!) with his mother and sister, neither of whom were in a good a mood as he was.

"It's nothing, Mom," he overheard Zoe say.

Heather sighed a bit. "Zoe, please don't go back on our deal by lying to me. It certainly isn't nothing. If you don't want to tell me, then just say so."

"Fine, I'll tell you. You don't understand me and you really don't understand Ricky," she said, gesturing to the boy who had just happily hopped down the stairs wearing his pretty yellow dress. "I don't understand you either, you're my mom and I have no idea what you're thinking. The only thing I'm sure of is that we only have this deal because something worse would happen if we didn't."

"That's why I'd like to spend more time with you," Heather replied, trying not to get angry at the spite in her daughter's voice and suspecting that hormones were involved. "Because I want to understand you, and I hope you can understand me, too." Zoe looked nonplussed. "I'm taking a half day today and I'll be back before 1. We'll have plenty of time. I'd also like to spend some time with you tomorrow as well." Zoe still looked apprehensive, and Heather sighed. "Zoe, is there anything I can do to heal this rift between us?" She'd already apologized for the big one.

"Would you get mad if we moved that vanity to Ricky's room?" Zoe asked. "I never use it."

"I suppose not," Heather said, a bit defeated.

"Then let's just start with that," Zoe replied, trying to make herself calm down. Her mother had already gotten some things and was on her way to getting the rest of them. "He's the one who actually wants to be pretty." Richard, smiling in tacit admission, gave his mother and sister a little curtsy.

"Well, he's doing a good job," Heather said, taking a closer look at his braided pigtails. She hadn't done that yesterday and was curious. "Zoe, did you teach him how to braid his hair?"

"Yup, that was me," Zoe said. It was the first time she'd smiled all morning.

Heather, on seeing that smile, let herself relax. They weren't normal teenagers, but they were still teenagers, and she could seize neither her daughter's true forgiveness nor her trust. "All right, then. I really should get in early because there's things I need to make sure are done before I leave early today. Just keep doing the chores and taking care of yourselves. I'll see you soon."

"Bye, Mom," Zoe said, trying to actually give her mother the connection she wanted. It was better than the alternative. There would be no third chances, though.

"Bye, Mom!" Richard added, waving.

Zoe sighed as her mother left. "I know, I know, not a monster, just stupid." Zoe finished her food and waited until her little brother had finished his. "It's that thing you said yesterday," she admitted. "That whole 'Oh, if I do this shit to her, she'll be a better person for it.'" She refrained from calling her mother a bitch.

"I don't think she believes that anymore," Richard replied. He could have explained further, about the sorts of people who were, for various reasons, fervently dead-set on the idea that abuse was help, but the conversation would have gone places he really didn't want to go and he would be inadvertently making comparisons to his own mother that he had no plans on making. From his perspective, Heather and Zoe were both normal people with normal people problems.

"Yeah, you're probably right. Let's go move that vanity." It was not particularly heavy and there was readily available space in Richard's room. One of them could have done it; two made it easy. "Actually, there's some other stuff you might like." She was out of clothes that might fit him, but there were toys she'd never played with. She fished an old box out of her closet, a Barbie playhouse with plenty of accessories. According to the faded sticker, the original price had been nearly eighty dollars (for cheap molded plastic!) but Heather had bought it at a yard sale for five. That was five dollars too many, as Zoe had barely even opened it once.

Richard was certain that there was stuff missing out of the box, it was probably like that when Mom had bought it, but he realized he didn't care. "This is way too boring," he said.

"You don't play with dolls?" Zoe asked with a smile. Despite having quite a few stuffed animals, and even having gone through a brief pony phase, Zoe had never particularly cared for Barbie either.

"I actually kind of do," Richard admitted, "but they're all on my computer." One of Richard's first forays into torrenting was The Sims 4, and he'd pirated, hacked, modded, and cheated the heck out of it. It and Skyrim were what had led him down the winding path of deeper computer knowledge.

"Can I see?" Zoe asked, very politely. She was expecting him to say no. There were things on her computer (including her own Sim family) that she would never show him, Leslie, or anyone else. Crushes, extremely childish ideas, half-finished fanfics of things she didn't care about anymore, sources of utter embarrassment that were very particular to her. Her private diary was not kept in a little pink book with a lock on it; it was backed up to the cloud and encrypted with AES-256.

She was surprised, then, when he said "Okay" and started running the game. "I haven't played this in a really long time," he explained as it loaded, and he was surprised when he saw the date on his last save file. Cripes, seriously? 2018? He hadn't touched this since he was eleven? He remembered everything, though, and he went back to his characters as if it had been yesterday.

"Why are there six kids?" Zoe asked.

"Because the maximum household size is eight," Richard replied, looking at the characters he'd made. Sextuplets, they were, children who would never grow older, each of them with color-coded clothes (red through purple) and perfect, identical traits along with a mother and father who had extremely high-paying jobs and maxed abilities. None of them were based on anyone he knew or any media he'd watched; he'd simply thought up names based on the colors they wore. He clicked on each of them, showing them off to Zoe, and he remembered why he'd stopped playing: he'd done everything he wanted to do. With cheats and mods, he'd maxed out all their skills and their friendships, made it so that they never had to pee and barely had to sleep and had school one day a week, and then he'd gotten bored.

"They're all happy and with a lot of friends," Zoe noticed. "Are they all girls?"

"No," Richard admitted. It was half and half. They were all wearing modded pretty dresses, but the modder had never made the dresses girls-only.

"This is the sweetest thing," Zoe said, smiling. Richard had been a lot more innocent back when he'd played this. "You'd like to be one of them, wouldn't you?" He just quietly nodded. "You might not have five close siblings, but you do have one big sister." She began to gently massage his shoulders, slipping easily into the caregiver role. No wonder Susie had fallen in love with him so quickly. She'd seen him, not his shields, when she'd first met him.

The Sim family was having a party in the middle of town when Zoe's phone and Richard's computer started blooping.

[10:03 AM] Caroline: well it looks like i cant do much for dad either  
[10:04 AM] Caroline: no work, no pool, under the weather with aunt flo

"What does that mean?" Richard asked, confused. It sounded like a euphemism, but did she really have an Aunt Flo...?

"It means she's having her period," Zoe said carefully. Richard could have whacked himself. Of course! Caroline had serious premenstrual syndrome three days ago.

[10:05 AM] Richard: It's not like there's any sharks in the pool, so I don't know what you'd be worried about.  
[10:06 AM] Leslie: Sharks?  
[10:07 AM] Caroline: ricky you get tell exactly one period joke in your life and that was it, dont do another one ever again unless you get into standup  
[10:07 AM] Zoe: You all see what I have to live with?  
[10:08 AM] Leslie: OH MY GOD THAT WAS A PERIOD JOKE  
[10:08 AM] Zoe: Yeah, this is my brother. Now imagine growing up with him.  
[10:08 AM] Susie: You better be careful with period jokes, Ricky. They tend to splash back on you.  
[10:09 AM] Leslie: LMAO SUSIE YOU'RE EVEN WORSE!  
[10:09 AM] Caroline: were you not listening when i told you they deserve each other?

"You two really do," Zoe said aloud, and hugged him from behind, feeling like he could not possibly be hugged enough. "We need to wash clothes," she reminded him, and like a good sissy, he put on his heels to do his housework. Then he'd recalled what his princess had told him, and so after all the clothes were washed, he put his boy stuff in the back and in boxes and his pretty girl clothes up front, where they belonged. Zoe rearranged her stuff as well, playing keep-keep-toss with old toys. It was her mother, not her, who had a sense of nostalgia for a lot of it, and Zoe was determined to make it so that everything in her space was something she wanted to be there. (A lot of it was just old crap, some of it with long dead batteries. Richard would never use any of it, not even the Barbie playhouse, so into the dumpster it went.)

They had lunch together, and played some Archon and 2v2 Starcraft, and as the leagues were separated, they were starting from the bottom and so proceeded to completely roll face. ("You guys are getting dunked on by a sissy boy!" Zoe had said aloud once, giggling at the screen, and Richard's laughter didn't affect his basically automatic hand movements.)

Heather would arrive later than she'd hoped, but she warned her children in advance. Richard was tempted to put on his rainbow boy clothes, but that would have been too much, so he dressed up like an ordinary boy again, wearing his swimming trunks in place of shorts and bringing another pair of pants for afterwards. He didn't feel like he was pretending when he wore dresses and heels anymore. Those were his normal, everyday clothes. It was boys' clothes and flat sneakers that were the costume, but he'd worn that costume all his life.

Heather retrieved her own (modest, one-piece) swimsuit, drove them to the pool, and was pleased to see that her daughter's mood had improved. Her own thoughts were a bit of a mess, work had been worse than she'd thought, and they got messier when she realized that her children had memberships to the Y that she didn't even know about. Susie, it was all Susie, she knew. She had the idea that her son could buy pretty much anything he wanted without even asking her, and she was never going to do anything about it. That thought made her feel more adrift than seeing him in a dress.

Richard was halfway to the locker room when he heard the characteristic bloops:

[2:50 PM] Susie: Got here early, in the changing room right now.  
[2:50 PM] Susie: Ricky, today, you don't want to take your eyes off me, you have trouble keeping your hands off me, you'll follow me to the ends of the earth.  
[2:50 PM] Susie: The first thing you'll say to me is how beautiful I am. :heart:  
[2:51 PM] Richard: Got it. I'm here early too. :heart:

They entered the pool area at nearly the same time, and telling her "You look incredibly beautiful today" was the very easiest thing in the world to do, and she put her arms around him and he reciprocated in kind, one around her back and the other on her thigh. "Well, every day. But especially today." She pursed her lips and they shared a quick kiss, Richard rapidly becoming erect, and as their heads moved, Richard caught a glimpse of a somewhat burly man with a harsh face and skin a touch darker than Susie's, treading water in the pool with precise movements.

And he was staring right at them!

Richard's erection shrank as quickly as it grew. Susie noticed his glance and turned, her right arm still around him and his left still around her. "Dad, this is Richard, my boyfriend. Ricky, this is my dad, Majid," she introduced them with a smile.

"Hello, sir," Richard decided on. Better to sound awkward than risk pissing him off.

"Hello, Richard," Majid said, and there were layers to that hello, layers of unspoken challenge that Richard did not entirely grasp. Majid turned to his daughter. "Susie, where is this girl you mentioned?"

"She's coming," Susie said. "We're still early." She tugged on Richard and pulled away. "C'mon, Ricky. Diving board's this way." The board was only about six feet from the water, and she unhesitatingly bounced once and dove in perfectly. Richard had jumped into pools before, felt the stinging shock of hitting water the wrong way, and his usual approach was to hesitantly jump in feet first - but after watching Susie expertly dive in Olympic style, he was far more afraid of looking like a coward than he was of any amount of physical pain. He dove in right after she swam out of the way, his hands in front of his head, trying to imitate her and what he'd seen on television. The dive was far from perfect, and he felt the water catch him in the forehead and strike him on the back a bit, and he spluttered a bit as he surfaced. He felt a tug on his shorts and wondered if they were coming loose from the dive, but instead, it was because Susie was tugging on his shorts, smiling at him and then quickly swimming away to the other side of the pool. Remembering her instructions, he immediately swam after her, furiously kicking as hard as he could.

Leslie arrived shortly thereafter with her mother, but Richard barely noticed. A few times, he spotted his mom conversing to Majid about whatever, the two of them close together in the pool. ('Small talk,' he hoped. 'Just random bullshit. Please, God, don't let Mom say anything stupid to Majid about anything.') A few minutes later, Heather went off to swim near Zoe and Leslie ('and please don't fuck with them either, Mom') while Majid swam with a precise stroke that Richard didn't recognize.

But his beloved princess had given him a very clear order: he was to continue looking at her. And so he did, constantly swimming after her, trying to find a rhythm that wasn't wasting energy. Granted, she was older than him, and a bit taller, but he had the benefit of testosterone - and that very thing was why he was following her. As long as she didn't betray him, a thing she would clearly never do, he was her property, her pet. If she told him to be her baby girl, he would happily do it. If she told him to act like a lovestruck boy (not exactly a difficult bit of acting!) in front of her father, he would happily do it, despite how much his muscles and lungs were starting to hurt. Especially when she took breaks between swimming back and forth, kissing him and holding onto him as furiously as he was swimming after her.

Richard wondered if she knew just what she was doing to him. She would never put him in a chastity device, she had promised, but the combination of close, personal touch on one hand, and exhaustion and her father's presence on the other, was having a similar effect (and, under the circumstances, not being able to get a boner was a good thing). He was thirteen years old, he felt like he couldn't wait another five minutes to take her somewhere private, and he had to wait until Wednesday. Still, he didn't want this to end. He was so close to her!

But eventually it did end, all too soon, and of course she gave him a long kiss goodbye, shamelessly and right there in front of everyone, before they all retreated to their locker rooms. There were two males in the whole group, Richard noted as he dripped his way out of the (hastily divided) showers and to the lockers: him and her father. And her father was right behind him.

Abruptly, the man put his arm around Richard, gripping his shoulder tightly, and Richard flinched at the violation of personal space. 'Oh boy, here it comes,' Richard thought. 'He's going to threaten me not to mess with his daughter. I wonder what'll happen if I tell him he's too late?' Susie's plans certainly must have included this. What kind of long game was she playing?

"If you break her heart, I will break your neck," Majid said in his ear instead before swiftly letting go, and Richard visibly relaxed, laughing a bit in obvious relief, inwardly jumping for joy, a great many fears being dispelled at once, Susie's plan suddenly making a lot more sense. For Richard, that didn't even count as a threat - it was effectively a blessing of their relationship!

"I'm never going to do that," Richard promised as he pulled his wet swimming trunks off, dried himself, and put on his pants. Going commando wasn't uncomfortable for him, and having Majid see his junk in the locker room wasn't even on his list of worries. "That's really not going to happen." He didn't think he could even begin to explain. 'Don't you dare suddenly decide that gravity isn't for you and start falling upwards instead!'

Majid dressed very quickly, trunks coming off and pants and shirt going on in smooth motions. "Excellent. We understand each other. Keep her safe." He was out the door before Richard had finished putting his shoes on. Even though his muscles were burning from exertion, he had to refrain from doing a happy dance, although he found himself skipping to the door, as skipping along to Susie's tune was taking him exactly where he wanted to go.

"You look happier than I expected," Heather said on their way to the car. "What did he say to you in there?" Heather had caught the man's serious expression on his way to the locker room.

"He said he wants us to stay together," Richard said joyfully. He almost told his mother and sister exactly how the man had said that but decided that was a bad idea.

"And likely warned you not to cheat on her," Heather replied knowingly. "Richard, I know you like playing games in your relationship with her, but your relationship itself, that's not a game. I know, I'm not telling you anything you don't already know. But never forget that." Their not-a-performance in front of her father had been demonstrative to Heather as well. She had known that they were doing things in private, but having their mutual devotion shown in public made things very clear.

"Why don't you talk to me about my relationship, Mom?" Zoe asked pointedly. Her mood had improved substantially, Richard noticed; she'd been able to spend an hour with Leslie in the pool, even if the time was occupied by actual physical therapy.

"Because I don't know what to say," Heather admitted. She had asked Willa just a handful of small, uncomfortable questions about it, and Willa's replies had been friendly and informative. They were teenagers, full of rampaging hormones and high emotions. Yes, they really did seem to love each other, and their relationship should be treated as that until contradicted somehow. Yes, Leslie's disability did complicate things, and they were all hoping the treatment would be effective. Trying to interfere with their relationship because her family would not have approved of it was an incredibly, nightmarishly bad idea for oh-so-many reasons, and Heather had already decided not to. It was obvious that Willa was trying to get Heather to come around to her way of thinking, but she was starting to do that anyway. "Oh, I forgot to mention. Susie's father wants to take your group boating on Sunday, so I'll be driving you to the lake as well." She hadn't been there in a long time.

Heather sighed a bit as her children immediately pulled out their phones, but she knew what they were doing, and their group did need to discuss it. "Oh, hey!" her son exclaimed. "Susie's dad is inviting us for sushi!" Heather blinked in surprise and immediately started heading to the restaurant. She knew the place her son was talking about, and it was far, far too expensive for her budget, despite how much her daughter had wanted to go there. It turned out that both of them already had.

It was only until Richard was inside the door that he realized that the last time he'd gone in there, he'd been dressed as a girl, complete with fake breasts. Fortunately, if the waitress or other staff recognized him, they gave no sign whatsoever, and Richard could never be sure if that was out of simple professionalism or if they really didn't remember his face. He tried to make himself calm down. What were they going to do, really? Go 'Hey, weren't you a girl last time you came in here?' right in front of his family and friends? This was an upscale Japanese restaurant, he didn't think anyone working there would do a thing like that. It was a good way to lose a tip if not all their business forever, and struggling restaurants in the middle of a pandemic needed all the business they could get.

Of course, Richard didn't entirely need to hide his excitement, as Susie had positioned herself right next to him. She didn't give him explicit instructions on what to do this time. Her cues were largely physical in nature, feeding him and letting him feed her, constantly happening to rest her hand on his legs and smiling when he did the same.

Majid was watching him, and the rest of them, very closely, even if he did not always look directly at them. The man had not become a powerful mogul by being socially unaware, and he knew considerably more than he let on. He smiled for the camera (Susie was posting pictures in the Discord chat for Caroline's benefit, but Caroline didn't even want to think about eating sushi right then) and learned how much Susie's group valued their absent member; he would have to learn more about Caroline as well, particularly as she had been driving his daughter places. He was very certain that his daughter was engaging in a performance of sorts with her boyfriend, to show him that they were serious with one another. What he did not understand was why the rest of them treated Richard with subtle, unconscious deference, as if he were some sort of hero. The boy had done something for them, he was certain. There was something very particular about him, and Majid was going to find out what.

But a meal was not the time to ask such questions, he decided. A meal was time for his daughter and her chosen boy to engage in courtship rituals. Ah, there - he knew what she wanted, before she wanted it, and the other way around as well. He could not keep the smile off his face, and the rest of them thought he was simply enjoying the delicious food. (He had told the whole group, in an unambiguously firm tone, to get whatever they would like to eat. They chose individual meals rather than a platter, this time.)

Heather's attention was largely on Zoe and Leslie. Zoe did feed the other girl, much as Richard had, but that was almost entirely one-way. Leslie could have fed herself, but her arms were tired, and she liked being fed by her girlfriend. Heather found herself eating deep guilt, and some relief, along with her sushi. She could have, probably would have, gotten in the way of that. What had she been thinking? She looked to Majid, who was sitting next to her with no sexual interest in her at all, and wished that she were young and beautiful again so that he wouldn't be so entirely out of her league.

The plates were completely cleaned and Majid paid for it all, and unlike his daughter he used Benjamins rather than Jacksons, and as they left, Richard and Zoe both independently realized how quickly the tables had turned. Less than a decade ago, their mother would have worried about being able to go to a fancy restaurant with her children, for fear that they'd do something stupid and embarrass her in public, and she had been relieved when they didn't. Instead, they were feeling a bit relieved that she hadn't.

"God almighty, Richard," Heather said as they got into the car, her stomach full of delicious, expensive sushi and similarly expensive mochi ice cream. "You keep her. I don't care what you have to do, you keep her." With effort, Richard kept himself from smirking or chuckling. If she only knew what he was doing already! "And, Zoe? You and Leslie are in love. I'm sorry I couldn't admit that sooner."

"Thanks for getting it, Mom," Zoe said, and Heather understood.

The three of them watched classic anime together, Heather on the couch between her daughter in her loose T-shirt and shorts and her son in his pretty yellow dress, and they were content.


	14. Rekindled Love

Richard was flipping a great many somethings the bird. Because two hands weren't enough, he grew a third and fourth and then went all-out and became a hecatoncheires of middle fingers. "Fuck you, and you, and you, and you, and you," he giddily exclaimed, not in anger but in jubilation. "Get out, piss off, you're gone, fuck you, and you, and you! You didn't think I saw you back there? Fuck you too! You suck! You can't do shit to me, and neither can you, nor you! Now get the hell out!"

He woke up laughing, wondering just what it was he had flipped off for a few seconds before realizing. The dream had not been subtle. He'd just flipped off all his old worries. The top of his list was empty. Even his girlfriend's father had intentionally and directly tossed Richard's related worries off the ladder. No, his worries were, for the most part, background noise, the sorts of things that any kid with friends would worry about, or maybe he would have to go into Sith mode for a fourth time. ('Please, not again...') The only other big one was 'What if Leslie's therapy doesn't work?', but that wasn't something he could do anything about.

It struck him that he was thirteen years old and actively looking for things to worry about. No, that was not what normal kids his age did. Then again, if he were normal in any respect, his life would be much different.

Smiling, he decided that it was too early to wake up, so he went back to sleep until other people moving around the house reawakened him. After morning cleansing rituals, he thought about what to wear of all his freshly laundered clothes, knowing that his mother would probably want to take him somewhere. He considered the rubber butt padding and boobs, but they were uncomfortable and very fake and would surely get sweaty on a hot June day. Nah. Maybe when he was older. For now, little girlishness suited him well, and so he decided on Sunshine, happily putting on the Little Miss Sunshine outfit and the granny panties that went with it, leaving his straps down as before and putting on the matching, stretchy, foot-hugging socks. He looked in his vanity mirror and considered whether or not to try makeup - nah, it was still too hot out there and he didn't feel like it - and remembered his hair. He didn't have his pigtails in, like his princess wanted him to! He immediately corrected his mistake, braiding them as well as he could, before going downstairs to eat breakfast with his mother and big sister.

"I'd forgotten all about that outfit," Heather said on seeing him. Her daughter had wanted her to forget about it, she realized. It really was rather immature-looking for its size, and it would have languished indefinitely in her closet before being thrown away if Richard hadn't started wearing it himself.

Zoe turned around in her chair and smiled. "Good morning, Sunshine!" she exclaimed with a smile.

"Good morning, Zoe! Good morning, Mom!" he replied happily.

"Well, a good morning to you too, Sunshine," Heather replied, joining in the fun. "Eat your breakfast before it gets cold," she said, but she didn't need to; Richard still had a teenage boy's appetite, after all. "I plan on spending a very nice day with the both of you. Is there anything that's going to interrupt that?" Her children affirmed that it wasn't going to happen. It was Saturday; Majid's boating excursion would be tomorrow.

She turned to her son and almost asked him if he was sure he really wanted to do this, but he'd already done far more and she knew it. She had a different warning to give him. "All right, Sunshine, I'm going to treat you exactly the way you clearly want to be treated. If that embarrasses you, you have no one but yourself to blame." Richard laughed a bit around his food, reminded of what Caroline had told him earlier that week. He didn't get to pretend that anyone was making him do this.

Richard swallowed his bite. "It's okay, Mom. If it's too weird, you'll embarrass yourself," he reminded her.

"All I am going to do today is go walking and shopping with my children." She almost pointed out their contrast, but that would have called Zoe unfeminine, which she decided would start drama that she really didn't want to start. "The two of you should know something I noticed on Facebook last night," she said instead, and they looked at her. "While I don't know what's official yet, Martin's wife and son have changed their last names there." Richard started laughing a bit around his food, and Zoe started clapping. Richard bowed slightly to his big sister in his chair. Heather just sighed. "I had guessed you might react that way, but the breakup of a family is not something to celebrate."

"It's our uncle's own fault," Zoe pointed out. "They didn't want to put up with him anymore, so now they're not. This could have ended way worse."

"He was the one who wanted to toss his kid into torture camp," Richard added, nearly downing his entire cup of orange juice in one gulp. "It's Martin who didn't want to deal with Michael anymore. Seriously, Mom, what's the problem? He got his wish."

"I just hope they can survive on their own without him," Heather replied. "Or would you like to have your cousin living here?" Her children blanched. Richard nearly dropped his fork. "This is not a joke. If my nephew has no place to stay, what am I going to tell him? That my own children are willing to see his family broken up but not willing to give him a place to live?" Richard's mind was squeezing in panic. There was no way he could deal with someone like that on a daily basis, especially not if he knew Richard's sissy secret. This was the kind of thing his worries were not planned for, something his destructive power could do nothing about without causing greater harm. He would have to hide again, he realized, and although he was certain that his mother and sister would not expose him, it was something he never wanted to return to. And Zoe! She would have to hide herself as well! Richard felt like he was in a particularly devious Choose Your Own Adventure book. You thought you were worried over nothing? Great, here's something to worry about! Oh, you wanted to save the mean kid? Great! Now he's your problem! Have fun!

"Wait, no, Mom, that's... no way," Zoe stammered out, panicking even harder than her brother. "She divorced him, so now her son is going to move in with the sister of the guy she just divorced?"

"Stranger things have happened. I know, it would be an enormous disruption for the two of you, and it is rather unlikely, all things considered, but there is a possibility."

"You said we were going to have a nice day today, Mom," Zoe quietly, sadly said.

"And that's still the plan. Zoe, he's not going to move in today or even next week, maybe next month, most likely never. Would you have preferred that I didn't tell you about this being a possibility?" Heather asked pointedly, and Zoe had no reply. Yesterday had been an un-fun day at work largely because someone had known something that he hadn't bothered telling Heather. "We practice honesty in this household, Zoe. If there's something that you know that might significantly affect me, I would like to know about it as well." There wasn't anything. Her children lived lives separate from their mother, which was why she wanted to have the family day in the first place.

Zoe sighed, putting her hands to her temples and running her fingers through her hair. She really did not want to do this to her mother, not just then, and yet... "Mom, there's something I've got to show you," she said.

"Is it something that will affect me?"

"It's something that'll affect me," Zoe replied, leading her mother upstairs, and Richard knew what it was. Not wanting to leave his sister alone for this, he quickly finished his breakfast before rushing upstairs, taking the stairs two at a time. Heather was trying to suss out Michael's bad spelling. "This is what he thinks I am, Mom," Zoe said, trying to assign as little blame as possible.

"God, Zoe, I should have listened to you about him," Heather said, feeling very put-upon. She knew her daughter was just trying to stop her cousin from ever seeing her again, not trying to rub anything in, and she still felt the weight of guilt. "All right. If she contacts me, I'll only accept him if he really has nowhere else to go. It really shouldn't come to that." She shook her head. "Let's set this aside for now. Get your shoes on, both of you. I'd like to go for a nice little walk before we go to a mall I haven't been to in a while."

As Richard went to his room, his pretty little skirt swishing, it occurred to him that perhaps he should be concerned about someone from school recognizing him and making fun of him, if not there, in the next classroom, online or off. It further occurred to him that perhaps he should have been more concerned about that multiple times over the past couple of weeks. Looking for a fuck to give, he upended his mental fuck box regarding that particular topic and shook, finding nothing therein except a mildly annoyed cobweb spider. He put the box back into the corner of his mind, deciding that it was the spider's rightful territory. Worrying about his cousin was quite enough, and that wasn't an immediate problem.

Putting on the Mary Janes that he'd decided went best with the outfit, he noticed his phone and reflexively checked it for messages, reflexively trying to put it in his pocket before remembering that his outfit didn't have pockets. And he'd almost left without it! That would really have been embarrassing. He sighed slightly. There would always be things to worry about, he knew, short-term and long-term, trivial and monstrous. The heck with it all. His mother had said that this was going to be a nice day so that's what he planned on having. He made himself smile - he was Sunshine today, after all - and hopped downstairs, handing his phone to his big sister to carry.

"You really need a purse," Zoe said. She had never had one, having no use for it. Her clothes had pockets, and she didn't carry makeup or a lot of extra stuff.

"That's something we can get him in the mall," Heather said, realizing that she was actually going to do this. She was actually going to participate in feminizing her son. Or maybe that was the wrong idea. She wasn't really making him a girl, she was simply making him pretty, the way he and his girlfriend - and his sister - liked him to be. He might grow out of it, she considered, or possibly Susie might, and she wanted to experience this while she could.

Instead of sitting in the back where Richard had normally sat, Heather's little Sunshine eagerly sat up front as she drove her children to a small park that she had seen many times and had not stopped at in a while. Wait, had her children played on that playground when they were little? She could not remember. It really was a nice, Saturday morning walk, and she and her children happily spent time together, with her in the middle and her children at her sides, smiling at the only other person there, a lady walking her dog who was pleased to see that at least one child liked dressing up nicely. The path meandered for more than a mile, but Richard was fine in his lovely, low-heeled Mary Janes, which made light clicking noises on the pavement. A couple of gophers, which hadn't been scared off by the woman's dog, poked their heads out and watched them. Then Heather had said that it'd still be a bit before the mall opened, and the swings were right there, and Zoe happily swung with her sissy brother, Richard kicking his legs without a care in the world, and even going down the slides a few times, being careful not to get his pretty outfit dirty, eagerly sitting up front again.

Heather was amazed at her son's transformation. Something in him, that had been bound up for years, was being let loose. He was always the sort of boy who didn't want to be seen, didn't want to participate. Playing on a playground at all was a "No thanks, Mom" after the age of ten or so. Now he didn't care at all who saw him, even though he was dressed like a much younger girl and would attract much more attention. Heather determined that this was much better for him, that if dressing up was giving him a more outgoing personality, then it was an enormous benefit to his overall mental health. Even her daughter was participating, and she would not have wanted to, either. Their only concern seemed to be Majid, but Susie reassured them through Discord that they were going in an entirely different part of the Greater Area that day and would certainly not meet up by chance.

Eventually, they had to stop, both of them worn out. The mall was further in the same direction as the park, and Heather had timed their arrival quite well, and the stores were just beginning to open. "Masks," she said, opening the glovebox, and her children groaned. "I know, I don't like it either. The mall itself doesn't require them but most of the stores do. They're loose." She had actually bought a multicolored pack, and she took an orange one, Zoe took a blue one to match most of her clothes, and Richard put on the yellow one, smiling behind it. Zoe held on to his hanging strap as they walked to the entrance, and Heather noticed with some surprise that he did not complain one bit.

There were actually quite a lot of things that Heather had wanted to do over the past few years but had never even suggested to her daughter. Matching mother-daughter dresses, for example. She had done something like it when the girl was four, but later, when Zoe was about seven or so, Heather had pointed to a picture of a woman and her daughter wearing matching dresses and Zoe had shrank back and nearly cried after just looking at the picture. At some point, any kind of suggestion that Zoe would want to look like, or be like, her mother had always resulted in some degree of fear or aversion. Heather couldn't fathom why it was true, but it was, and nothing she gave the girl had ever changed that. She'd hoped that she could have coaxed her daughter out of that attitude after puberty, teach her to be feminine, but she'd gone about it entirely the wrong way and it was clearly a fool's errand in the first place.

There was one store that she'd wanted to go to with her seven-year-old daughter, a place specializing in girls' accessories, and she smiled as she saw that it was still open. Her last boyfriend had been with her then, and he could actually be a decent guy when he wasn't drunk, but he'd thought it was a waste of time and money, and Richard had shrank back (a small part of him had wanted to go in, but he could never have said it out loud, not at that age). Before Heather could suggest that she and Zoe might go in without them, Zoe had immediately sided with the males. Heather, crestfallen, had just gone along with the rest of them. 

This time, though, Zoe was very willing to go in with her, not for herself but to be her mother's partner in making her son more girly, which was what he clearly wanted as well. Heather smiled deeply at the idea that Zoe was now her.. well, 'partner-in-crime' was a bit much, but that was how it felt. They walked in together to the smiling greeting of a girl who was clearly new there, browsing the racks, mother and daughter deciding what would look best on their little Sunshine.

This mall was struggling as well, and to cut costs, that accessories store had to let a long-time employee go and hire a teenager at close to minimum wage, at least for the summer. Angeline had eagerly leapt at the chance, as she just needed to get away from her parents. After that disastrous babysitting experience, the one that had gone so right for her until it went so disastrously wrong (she could still hear the funeral dancer music sometimes), her parents had thrown blame her way and she had hotly reminded them that they had told her exactly what to do and she had done it. They had told her how much trouble she could have gotten in, and she had practically screamed at them, demanding to know why the hell they didn't tell her that before she had put those boys in those dresses. They hadn't dared to punish her, not even to decrease her substantial allowance - if she got upset enough to blow the lid, she'd get them both sent to the state pen in a hot minute - but the tension was such that she had to find reasons to stay out of that house, even if it meant taking a minimum wage job at a mall. She'd make some money, maybe make some normal friends, and the general lack of customers meant that she could fool around on her phone for most of her shift, getting paid seventy bucks a day to watch cat videos.

She was absolutely not fooling around on her phone when that group came in. That extremely cute sweetheart in the Little Miss Sunshine shirt, ruffled skirt, ruffled socks, and Mary Janes was a boy, she was certain of it, she knew what to look for. Aha, there, his mother had just gestured to his Adam's apple and picked out a yellow choker to cover it up, and his sister had picked up some matching clip-on earrings and plastic bracelets, and they'd agreed on some yellow, little-girlish hair clips with the little spheres on top for his oh-so-sweetly braided pigtails. He was getting a belt pouch, too, a sparkly yellow one to match the rest of his outfit! His sister was holding on to him by a strap, and he was smiling, he was actually smiling, and Angeline wondered just how much pressure and subtle manipulation they'd placed on him to get him to accept being sissified to that extent. She'd hoped in the back corner of her mind that she'd meet a sissy when she took the job, and she couldn't believe that she'd found one at the end of her first week!

She made her move when they approached to purchase the items. "Wow! You've made some good decisions here, these will go perfectly with that outfit," she said in a tone that implied she knew exactly what was going on. "Hey, if you want to get him some real earrings, I know a good place to get them pierced," she told Heather, putting subtle emphasis on the male pronoun, and Heather was surprised and unsure how to respond.

Richard immediately grew wary. This girl knew he was a boy and was clearly interested in him, and the first thing she said was that he should get holes pierced through his flesh? Something about the way she talked was setting off alarm bells, and Richard reminded himself that there was just no way someone genuinely, manipulatively evil could possibly be working at the counter of a girls' accessory store. Fortunately, he had an easy and fast way out. "Sorry," he said in a voice far more confident than Angeline was expecting; she hadn't even been expecting him to speak up at all. "My girlfriend wouldn't like it if I did."

Angeline kept up the customer service persona, saying that she understood completely and hoped that he and his girlfriend would have a wonderful time together while ringing them up, but inwardly she was fuming. Of course, of course she couldn't have anything good, of course a sissy like him was already claimed! Damn it! She wanted to press for information but knew that it would only make her look suspicious to his family, and as they happily left the store to sit on a bench and put the items on, she stewed over missed opportunities.

Heather chuckled. "I didn't think you'd be recognized so easily," she said. "At least she was nice."

"Yeah, a little too nice, Mom," Zoe said, snapping the necklace around Richard's neck, making sure that it wouldn't actually choke him. "I don't think she and Susie would get along."

Heather chuckled some more in reply. "Looks like our little Sunshine is a little Don Juan." She gave her son an impromptu one-armed hug after she finished putting in the hairclips around his pigtails and the clip-ons on his ears. (They were substantially less irritating than he had expected.) Zoe put his phone in his sweet little pouch, and he wore it happily, his bracelets reflecting the fluorescent lights. This, Heather realized, was what she wanted the whole time, the experience she was expecting to have with her young daughter, the experience of being a giving mother to a happy child, letting her child sparkle in the light. She smiled. So what if it was her son and not her daughter? Who had the standing to judge her, judge any of them? Her brother would have despised this, but his family was in tatters. Heather's family was enjoying this and that was all that mattered. She smiled widely behind her mask. "Okay, Sunshine. Is there anything else you need?"

"Socks," Zoe said immediately, and Richard nodded in agreement. He only had a few pairs of socks and tights, and most of them were meant to go with specific outfits. The Target was on the other side of the mall, so they walked past quite a few stores, many of which were shuttered. Heather was a window shopper by nature, taking time to browse, and normally she would never have done this with her children in tow. Zoe got bored of it; Richard got really bored of it.

But today was different, today her children were okay with their mother's lackadaisical browsing, even when she went to places like gift stores where Zoe would normally never be caught dead with her in. There was all kinds of weird stuff in that darkened store, plasma globes and UV blacklights, adult-themed stuff that Zoe was surprised wasn't behind glass, a physical copy of Cards Against Humanity (Zoe had never seen one before; all their games had been online), extra-large gummi worms, and abruptly as she walked, she felt herself tugging on the strap. Richard had come to a stop. "What are you looking at?" Zoe asked.

Richard pointed at the pacifiers, actual adult-sized pacifiers, on the wall. Zoe covered her laughing mouth before realizing she was already wearing a mask. Wait, so was he, so that meant that he could... and he was probably already thinking it, no, she was sure he was was thinking it. She immediately snagged a yellow one off the wall and realized that she hadn't brought her own money and he hadn't brought his. "Mom, will you buy this for us?" she quietly asked with a small smirk.

Heather immediately, clearly caught her daughter's intention and looked to make sure Richard was in on it. He obviously was. "That's a wonderful idea," she agreed with a mischievous smile, feeling very much like she herself was a teenager again, trying something taboo just because it was taboo. They shopped around for a little while longer before purchasing the pacifier from a very, very unconcerned cashier. (She had been the store manager since it opened twenty years ago. Nothing fazed her anymore. A teenage girl dolled up in a little girl's outfit wasn't even on her radar and she didn't even look at what the girl's mother was buying her.)

Conspiratorially, the three of them went into the ladies' room together, and Heather snipped the package open with the scissors in her purse. "Wait," she told her son before she could pop it into his mouth. She washed it off thoroughly in hot water, a bit of mall hand soap, and then a very heavy rinse before offering it to him. Smiling, Richard accepted the pacifier and started suckling on it, silently noting that it still tasted very faintly of soap. He put his mask back on, and it was indeed loose enough that no one could tell he was pacified. He laughed into the mirror behind his pacifier while his mother and sister smiled together behind their own masks.

Richard fell into a state of bliss, not the same as when he was with Susie but deep contentment nonetheless. If he had been told a couple weeks ago that he would be walking around a mall dressed like a pretty little girl, with accessories to match, with a pacifier in his mouth, he would have freaked out. But his relationships, the mutual trust and acceptance of himself and everyone he cared about, had grown by leaps and bounds, and the happy little sissy eagerly let his big sister hold him by the strap as he walked along in his Mary Janes. A few people looked at them, but so what? They were obviously just girls being girls.

Normally, Heather would never have wanted to buy a lot of clothes in a regular store, favoring thrift stores and yard sales, but the pandemic had hit chain stores hard, and there was a lot of inventory that this store was obviously just trying to get rid of.

Some of it, Heather was pleased to note, was clothes. The kind of ruffled socks that her little Sunshine had on weren't available, but there were things in all kinds of cute patterns, and she and Zoe shared a very happy moment together deciding which cute kitties, unicorns, and hearts would look best on his feet. (Heather even picked up some socks for herself, and after a bit of consideration, Zoe did too.)

The store also had a supply of was one-piece pajamas, similarly on sale. Richard just wished that they had feet and maybe mittens attached. "Oh my God, these are so cute," Zoe nearly squealed, picking out one with a rainbow pastel motif that reminded her of his Spectral outfit and another one that had a unicorn's head on it.

Heather smiled. "Zoe, do you want some for yourself?" she asked, and Zoe froze a bit, trying to think up a truthful answer that would explain how she really felt about this. Her mother understood. "I'm not going to judge you or change our relationship if you choose to wear them," she said quietly. Heather was getting a handle on why Zoe, who still maintained a small population of plushies in her room and had just chosen some kitty socks for herself, was averse to some cute things. The girl was worried that her mother was going to treat her in a way that she didn't like, drag her into activities she despised, and Heather could admit to herself that she would have done exactly that. Zoe, uncertain, looked to her brother, who was nodding in agreement and acceptance, his eyes saying it all, that she would be fine wearing that if she wanted, that their mother wouldn't actually see things like that as a stepping stone to take away her independence. Heather bought two pairs of the rainbow and unicorn sets, letting her kids look like twinsies.

She also took the chance to buy them regular clothes as well, smiling inwardly at the idea that her pacified son wouldn't whine in the way he had before. The stuff they had was bought secondhand and getting just a bit ratty, and no one was watching nor cared about the pretty girl in the boys' department. Zoe briefly wondered how they would deal with this in the fitting room, but, of course, the fitting room was closed due to the pandemic and Heather knew her children's sizes. While Heather wanted to give her son a bit of a high-class, preppy look, befitting his new status as Susie's boyfriend, there were things that the pacified Richard shook his head at. It wasn't looks he was worried about, but irritation. He felt the inside of everything that Heather picked out, feeling uncomfortable seams and the inside of buttons. Heather would normally have been exasperated at this sort of behavior, but she reminded herself that the boy's skin was certainly sensitive to that kind of thing, and she was being rather insensitive by not having realized that sooner. As he was only concerned with feel and letting his mother pick out looks, there were enough things that they could both agree on. Zoe, of course, picked for herself, and Richard felt a strange sense of enjoyment at being the little sibling whose mommy picked his clothes for him.

They didn't worry about what a cashier might think, as they used self-checkout, and with their purchases in hand, Heather led her delighted children back to the car through the mall.

Angeline, having served a couple of other customers in the interim, looked at the sissy boy and his family intently as they passed by, seeing his face from behind and recognizing with amazement that he was suckling on a pacifier behind his mask. (The uninitiated would have never noticed, but she was wise to such things.) She couldn't figure it out. He'd sounded so confident, and there was the way his mother and sister were by his side, all of them carrying shopping bags, the three of them so carefree, it didn't even look like he had ever been upset about it...

It looked like he had always wanted this to happen to him!

With a rush of insight and the fury of feeling betrayed, Angeline realized that her parents had told her the entirely wrong things for the wrong reasons. She was sixteen years old and smoking hot. There were males beyond count who would gladly volunteer for someone like her to dominate them, sissify them. She didn't have to try to mold the personality of some innocent kid who was in over his head. She could fully tell the right teenager, someone closer to her age, in exquisite detail exactly what she planned to do to him, and he would ask for it - and she would not be risking going to fucking jail for child abuse nor would she wind up on the sex offender registry. Hell, there were wealthy adult men who would line up to be her pets, and she could have as many as she wanted! Her ideal boytoys were already out there somewhere, waiting to be plucked, and she was going to find them.

Heather took off her mask as she got into the car, and her children did as well, Richard still happily suckling on his pacifier. "Spit that out. People will ask the wrong kinds of questions," she admonished her son, and he reluctantly did, knowing that his mother was probably right, putting it into his new belt pouch. The question, she decided, might kill the mood, but she had to ask it even if she didn't expect an actual answer. "Why did it take this for us to enjoy a simple day of shopping together?" she asked anyway, gesturing to Richard's pretty outfit.

"Because we trust you now," Richard answered, simply and immediately.

"Yeah, it really is just that," Zoe added. "You're actually on our side now." Heather understood very, very well.

"You actually listened when I showed you the scratchy stuff in the clothes," Richard pointed out. "I wasn't even talking, and you still listened." Heather remembered when he was younger and she had dismissed that stuff as annoying whining. God, had she actually been like that to them? How many other things like that had pushed them away from her?

Of course, the other way was true as well. "And you actually listened when I told you what would look good on you," Heather replied, and he nodded. "All right, Zoe, Sunshine, what do you want to eat?" The food court had been totally closed.

"There's a Chinese place right there," Zoe said, pointing. "There's a sign, pick-up and delivery only, but that means they're open."

Heather and her children were all amazed at just how far some people went in protecting themselves from the coronavirus. Transactions, of food and money, were handled through a plastic airlock. But the customer service was friendly and the lady gave Richard enormous compliments on his outfit, and it wasn't long until the three of them were drinking cans of green tea and eating chicken, lo mein, and pork fried rice in the car, Richard having napkins over his lap to protect his ruffled skirt, and Heather's heart melted. God, he was just so precious. No wonder he had been so protective of himself.

"Are you ready to go home?" Heather asked.

"If you don't have anywhere else, yeah," Zoe said. Heather could never have imagined her daughter saying that before. She actually wanted to spend time with her mother. Hallelujah!

"Mom, do you want to go back to that park?" Richard suggested.

"No, I think I'm done for the day," Heather said. "But thank you for asking." She drove them home with a combination of elation and enlightenment, feeling very much like she had unlocked something in both her children and herself.

"Oh, hey, Mom, do you want me to pay for some of that stuff you bought?" Richard asked after walking in the front door.

"Richard, everything we did today was my gifts to the two of you. I certainly don't expect you to pay me back for any of it. The only thing I want in return is to see the two of you in the pajamas you decided on."

Brother and sister decided to wear the rainbow ones first, even picking out matching socks to go with them, and Heather again listened when her daughter told her what could be done with the picture Heather wanted to take, of the two of them with their arms around each other: it would be for her, the Squad (who greatly enjoyed it), and no one else. And then the two of them went to play their favorite together. Fifteen minutes later, a twelve-year-old a thousand miles away pounded his fist on the keyboard. "Fucking sweaty tryhards, I bet your mom still dresses you!" he shouted at the screen after he and his partner suffered a humiliating, catastrophic, and rapid defeat. A few more crushing victories later, Zoe decided that she had something she wanted to show her brother, introducing him to a a Korean comics website he'd never even heard of, and he popped his paci back in as he read.

Heather's children gladly helped to make a late dinner, still wearing their incredibly cute pajamas, and she took note when Richard said that Majid wanted to get a 7 AM start on their boating on Sunday, showing her on the map where he planned on taking them.

"Go to bed right after you eat," Heather told her children. "That lake is an hour's drive away." Being woken up that early was not something her children favored, but Ricky would be with Susie and Zoe would be with Leslie, and so they would tolerate practically anything.

'Hey, Zoe," Richard asked after they had finished, "this is gonna sound weird, but... can I borrow one of your plushies?"

Zoe smiled in immediate understanding. "Looks like someone wants to feel little tonight." Richard blushed and she kissed him on the head, and he followed her into her room where she decided which one to give him. "For some reason, I've always thought of this one as a boy," she said, handing him a pink stuffed rabbit. "Here's Mr. Flopsy. Take good care of him."

"I will," Richard agreed, hugging the plushie to himself, very much enjoying the sensation of being little, mothered, cared for, and safe. He went to go pee - he wasn't wearing a diaper, and the one he did have was for his next session with Susie - and he put a pair of his cute socks over his hands, cuddled Mr. Flopsy close, and happily snuggled under the covers, suckling on his pacifier. He realized that he was getting an erection, but he didn't do anything about it. That, too, was for Susie. Instead, he simply decided to enjoy the feeling of being little, and he drifted off to sleep.


	15. She Wears the Pants

The first thing that Heather remembered that morning was that she had, in fact, been the one to tell her kids to go to bed early and that she had very much expected being woken up at 5:30 AM to take them to a boating trip, and she tried not to be surly about it, even if she felt that both of her children were acting much younger than usual. (The fact that they were both in their rainbow one-piece pajamas added to that impression.) Yes, she knew that she had to get done with the shower quickly, but she had to go to the bathroom, and even if her children were downstairs with half-eaten bowls of cereal already, she had to make some breakfast of her own, and then the car didn't have enough gas to get there so she had to stop for that as well, and she would certainly not drive in a hurry on roads she'd never driven on before. At least her son was wearing the clothes she'd bought him, a polo shirt and shorts that made him look like more of a wealthier, more well-mannered boy than usual. And they hadn't forgotten the sunblock, either.

As Richard pointed out, it was exactly 7:08 when they arrived at the boating dock (there was no data service, her children had been exchanging texts the whole way), and everyone else had already arrived. Robert and Willa were at the boat with Majid, discussing where and how Leslie would be seated, with Caroline helping out. And, of course, there was Susie, wearing close-fitting long pants, purple sneakers, a light, long-sleeved shirt, and her own purple lifejacket. "Ricky!" she exclaimed, running up to him happily and holding up a bright orange lifejacket, and Richard immediately broke off from his family to talk to her privately. "I see you got some new boy clothes," she whispered, giggling. "They look good on you."

He smiled. "And everything looks good on you," he replied, knowing how awkward it sounded after he said it.

She giggled lightly. "Lift up your arms," she told him, and Richard wondered if the others could guess that she was experienced at dressing him, easily slipping the jacket over his arms and head. "Dad knows your secret," she whispered in his ear, and he stiffened up in sharp fear and alarm as she finished snapping up his lifejacket. She giggled some more. "He knows you're the one who caught Leslie's birth parents." Majid had asked, without preamble or segue, what everyone obviously respected him so much for. After a bit of back-and-forth regarding secrecy, Robert and Willa had decided to tell him the truth.

Richard exhaled in relief. "Your Highness, don't DO that!" he whispered back, and she giggled some more and kissed him, and they hugged deeply, their lifejackets rubbing as they held each other close.

"I had a really bad dream last night," she quietly confessed. "You were in a dress and on a stage somewhere, and everyone was watching you and making fun of you, and I couldn't get to you, and then you exploded." It hadn't been a cartoon explosion, either. The shock of the bang, a mental jolt not caused by anything from outside, had woken Susie up. Not knowing how to reply, he just kept hugging her, his erection growing. "I bet you had a better night's sleep in your cute jammies," she teased him lightly.

"I did," he admitted in a low voice. "I put in my pacifier, I had on socks, on my hands too, and hugged a plush rabbit all night." It occurred to him then just how much of a treasure Susie really was. How many other possible girlfriends could he have admitted that to? God, he needed her. He needed her to put him in his prettiest dress and give him housework to do and turn him into a helpless little baby and make love to him again.

"That is so adorable!" she very quietly squealed in his ear. "You got a new pacifier?! Where'd you get it?"

"Gift store, in the mall we went to," he explained quietly. "I actually wore it under my mask."

"You should have shown it to us!" she quietly squealed some more. The chat had been largely quiet yesterday, mostly occupied by Caroline and Leslie having a long and meandering conversation about recuperation while Majid had been teaching Susie how to drive. She hugged him harder, looking over to the rest of the group, which was throwing more and more glances their way. "Ricky, you belong to me," she reminded him, quietly and firmly, directly in his ear. "Fuck the Thirteenth Amendment. You are mine." He tried not to laugh, both from her swearing and the way she had put it.

"I'm your property," he quietly agreed, and she kissed him again before they walked back to the boat together. Majid and Leslie's parents had finished arranging the seating for her. She was placed on soft foam cushions and strapped into her seat by a few elastic cords under tension, all of which were hooked together with a quick-release lanyard in case the boat capsized somehow. "Hey, Caroline! Feeling better?"

"A lot," Caroline replied brightly, very much back to her old self. "Nothing like last week. I was just telling your mom how I could have drove you here."

"And I was about to say that I'm glad I came here myself," Heather replied. "This is a very nice place." Her husband had brought her to places like this, and she couldn't help but think of him every time she went to one. She wondered what the man would have thought of his children, whether he could have learned to accept them as they were, and not knowing for sure filled her with deep sadness.

She was not, however, upset or surprised that she wasn't invited for the ride. The boat was a six-seater; Majid had prepared to take the children but not the adults. Up front was a single seat for the driver; behind him were two other seats that were (unfortunately, from Richard and Susie's point of view) separated by an aisle; in the back were three, counting the central one that Leslie was strapped into.

"Is this a rental?" Heather asked.

"Yes, you passed my sister's business on your way here," he explained, and it took Heather and her children a little bit to get it. It wasn't that he rented a boat. It was that his family rented boats to other people! Susie smiled at her boyfriend as she took his hand and led him in, gesturing to his seat across the aisle from her.

A few things were going through Richard's head at that moment. Being able to objectively look at himself was an ability he tried to cultivate from time to time, and he imagined what might happen if someone were to say 'A thirteen-year-old boy is tied into baby bondage by his girlfriend. Where do you think he will be in a week?' Perhaps one of the hardcore fetishists might offer a humiliating, sexually depraved, torturous, utterly dehumanizing, and/or more confining situation; a cynic might reply with something like 'therapy' or 'unwilling to leave his bedroom'; someone with a bit more knowledge of his situation might wryly opt for 'doing the same thing he was last week'.

The answer turned out to be that he was on a boat, a place that he had never been before in his life. (One of the other things going through his head was the relevant Lonely Island song.) The phrase 'how the other half lives' had a special meaning to him; the princess he so badly wanted to be his 'other half' was very much a princess, decisively a member of that other other half.

It was actually a bit chilly on the lake, much cooler than he was expecting, and he realized why Susie had been wearing long pants. Oh, right, he knew this one, he'd gotten lucky enough to get an actually good science teacher one year who had explained how large bodies of water are slow to heat up and cool down. The deeper waters wouldn't really warm up for months. He did not complain, and neither did anyone else. He was with Susie. His only problem was that she was not sitting on his lap.

It was to the group's surprise that Majid called Susie up to the front once they were in the middle of the placid lake, but just like he taught her to drive a car, he was teaching her to drive a watercraft. It certainly didn't look difficult, even if the throttle wasn't a gas pedal; there were fewer controls than on a car and fewer things to worry about. There wasn't a brake as such, but you couldn't suddenly put a car into reverse, either; the reverse on this, as Majid explained, was simply the propeller flipping over to point the other way. Susie drove for about ten minutes, making a long, lazy circle and turning back and forth a few times, and then Majid said it was Richard's turn.

Surprised, he accepted the offer immediately, being very careful at first. He had never driven a car before, but everything still felt subtly wrong, and he tried to puzzle through the weirdness. Well, it was on water, not land, and the steering came from the back, not the front. There was no rudder; the propeller turned when he turned the wheel, and the motor was more powerful than he was expecting. Majid warned him, as he had warned Susie, that if he turned the throttle up too high and turned too sharply, the boat would fishtail badly. He did some turning, experimented a bit, played around, then he pointed the boat in a straight line and then gradually turned the throttle all the way up - the boat started bouncing slightly and the others started cheering in excitement - and he turned it back down and said that it was someone else's turn. Majid was smiling at him. Richard was sure the man was testing him, but he had no idea how to pass. And then Zoe came up, and she liked going back and forth in fluctuating motions with the wheel, gently rocking Leslie in the back for a nice, long while. Then it was Caroline's turn, and she barely needed any instruction at all, intuitively knowing exactly what she was doing, and Richard wondered if she had done it before.

"I want to try," Leslie said quietly, glad that she wouldn't need her legs to accelerate or brake, and Zoe amplified her. Richard expected Majid to say that it was too dangerous, that she had been strapped in back there for a reason.

Instead, with purpose, the burly man walked to the back of the boat and leaned down to unhook the disabled girl. Richard had thought that the six of them would have to maneuver her; instead, Majid simply picked her up like a baby and carried her to the front as if she weighed nothing at all. Richard found himself envying that strength, as he wanted to be able to do the same thing with Susie. It wasn't a matter of personal pride but of potential necessity. What if she needed him to do something like that, and he couldn't come through? What if she merely wanted him to do something like that, and he couldn't obey his princess? He realized that this wasn't a particularly 'sissy' thing to be worried about, but masculinity and femininity were on the bottom of his list right then. He was her submissive, her plaything, her willing slave, her beloved pet. He could not, would not, disappoint her, and he saw being able to pick her up as a possible base-level necessity at some point in the future.

The boat smoothly started accelerating with Leslie at the throttle. It was a very gentle ride; Leslie was having a tough time with the controls and Majid was silently, patiently helping her. She continued for a while, driving around in slow circles before daring to turn it up as Richard had, before she vociferously thanked Majid for the opportunity and he carried her back to her seat, buckling her in as she was before.

"Before we continue with the entertainment, I would like your assistance with some cleanup," Majid said, piloting the boat to an acre-sized island. He opened up a compartment inside the deck, retrieving trash bags and thick, disposable gloves. "This is state property, but the state refuses to send anyone to do this," he lamented, and the teens understood. "Be especially careful of needles, and please try to be thorough," he told them, pleased that he was actually talking to a group of teenagers that was willing to do such work. Even his own boys had disliked doing things like this. But, for this group, it was a small price to pay for the experience, this was Susie's dad so none of them were going to complain in front of her, and Caroline had been taught to clean messes up nearly since she was old enough to make them. Leslie looked worried that she would be excluded, but he simply picked her up as he did before, putting her on his shoulders the way Richard had - only much smoother, much easier - giving her gloves and a trash bag to hold before tying the boat to a tree with a thin rope.

Of course, Richard and Susie were going off together, and Richard actually was annoyed - not at Susie's dad but at the inconsiderate losers who had left so many plastic bottles, crushed beer cans, food wrappers, and various cigarette and vaping crap around. This was a genuine island on a lake, a place that ought to be despoiled only by bird poop - there were plenty of small birds around - and perhaps a family of rabbits or squirrels. And not only was he picking the trash up, his princess was doing such manual labor as well!

"One day, when I've got my license and no one's out here, I'm going to bring you here, just the two of us," Susie said once they were out of earshot, and his heart leapt. "You'll have your prettiest dress and shoes on, and your diaper, and maybe a pair of legwarmers, and mittens, too," she told him with a smile, knowing that it was making him excited. "Maybe I'll make sure that none of these trash-leaving creeps are coming to the island," she said as she disgustedly picked up a well-used and wholly unidentifiable scrap of cloth, "and we can light a campfire and I'll bring a sleeping bag, too. Just one." His heart was thudding in his chest. She looked at him and giggled, feeling a little bit guilty. "I'm really teasing you, aren't I?"

"It's okay if you tease me, Your Highness," he replied, smiling even as he picked up a crushed beer can. "But it's only fair if we actually do those things."

"We will," she assured him. "Maybe by then, you'll be able to pick me up the way Dad picks up Leslie." He looked at her in surprise. "I knew that's what you were thinking. 'What if she needs me to pick her up?'" He stared at her, his mouth slightly open. No one, not Zoe and certainly not his mother, had been able to read him the way Susie could read him. "When you can, remember to treat me gently. I am a princess, after all," she said, giggling lightly. God, just hearing her say that, and he hadn't had an orgasm in days... She kissed him abruptly, full on the lips. He almost asked her to stop, that he couldn't take the tension, but he still never, ever wanted her to stop.

She broke off the kiss and they went back to picking up trash. She decided it was a good time and place to give him what she considered the big explanation, the stuff she didn't want to say over text chat, not even on voice. This one had to be done in person. "When I was ten, Dad gave me a big long lecture, he said he didn't want to have to explain it, but he did." The man's tone had been apologetic, as he was telling her the things she hadn't wanted to hear. "My older brothers were kicking a ball around, and they were letting me join in, and I think I had said something that I'd be able to keep up with them when I was older, and then later my dad said that because I was a girl, I didn't have testosterone, I wasn't ever going to be as strong as a boy, and if I was ever going to have an enjoyable life, I'd have to accept that I'd have a husband who was going to be bigger than me, take charge of me, all that stuff. 'Wear the pants in the family', he actually said that." She smiled, picking up half a glass bottle and carefully picking up shards of broken glass along with it, glad that her father had given them gloves. "That's when I decided, no way. Not me, Dad. If I'm going to get married, I don't care if he's bigger than me, I'm going to be the one wearing the pants in the family. I just needed to find a boy who agreed with me." She finished picking up the glass, and she and Richard shared a very meaningful look. "So, which one of us wears the pants?"

"You do, Your Highness," Richard replied without hesitation. He didn't know if there was a word for what he was feeling. He certainly wasn't humiliated or upset in any way. He didn't feel restricted, weakened, or even emasculated.

"And which one of us wears the dress?" she asked.

"I do, Your Highness," Richard replied, smiling. Submissive, he decided. He was simply feeling submissive. She was a girl, and he was a boy. She wore the pants, and he wore the dress.

"And you always will." Being told that was comforting, reassuring, and a faint, contented smile stayed on his face as he continued to work.

They met Caroline going the other way, and she was shaking her head at the waste, her trash bag full of cans, bottles, and cups. "Can you believe these people?" she rhetorically asked. "Who brings a McDonald's cup to a place like this, seriously?"

"The cigarettes are worse," Susie replied, holding the bag out away from her like it was full of radioactive rats.

"Yeah, people are smoking while there's a disease going around attacking their lungs. Real smart. Anyway, I'm surprised you two were actually paying attention." Both Richard and Susie laughed, and they heard the others talking, Majid still carrying Leslie on his back. Richard figured that the man must have been in the army or something.

Majid was clearly uncomfortable, though, but not from carrying her. "Did any of you find any needles?" he asked. None of them had. "Hmm. Richard, you seem to be the expert here. There have been drug users reported to be around this area. How would you find them?"

Richard, on the spot and knowing he was being tested, looked for a solid answer, but none was forthcoming. The possibilities were too broad. "You'd... have to have somebody watching, there's really no other way. Maybe a hidden camera? This is a big lake, you don't know where they're coming from, do you? Actually, if there are drug addicts, they might not hang out in one place all the time, not way out here, I don't think." A lot of the trash looked to be months, possibly years, old and might have been floated in from upstream. "Even if they were here, I don't even know if they'll be back here or on the shore or somewhere else. I don't think there's a really good answer."

Majid sighed. "Unfortunately, without knowing who they are and what they do, I think you are right."

"How do you even know they're doing drugs and not just drinking?" Caroline asked, jingling her trash bag.

"My sister Yasmin has seen people who were clearly on strong drugs," Majid replied. "Maybe they clean up after themselves or this isn't exactly where they go. I am hopeful that Richard is right and they won't be back. I appreciate all your hard work." A chorus of "You're welcome" and "No problem" answered him. "Please do not throw away your gloves just yet. There are a couple more places that I want to make sure are clean. Richard, I would like you to drive. I'll show you where I mean to go."

"Okay," Richard immediately agreed, having a surface-level understanding of Majid's thoughts. He wanted Richard to be the man, take the wheel, take charge. 'Sorry, sir,' Richard might have said. 'I can take the wheel, but Susie will always be in the driver's seat.'

As they continued down the lake, the water going faster as it became a river, it was Caroline who did most of the talking; sitting on Leslie's right this time, she pointed out various bits of trash, and Richard, getting the hang of things, carefully maneuvered the boat so that she could scoop them out. Majid told Richard to continue to a bridge that they had to take to get there; a lot more trash was under there, to everyone's disgust, but it was concentrated in a small area and so Leslie stayed in the boat.

Richard put the boat into reverse to to turn it around - he was very glad he had played so many driving games when he was younger - and he managed to do that without even getting close to hitting anything. They went next to the other side of the lake this time, and that was when Majid pointed out a very suspicious area, one with trails leading to it and a lot of visible junk.

It was Leslie who pointed out the broken needle, having seen so many of them before, even before Majid lifted her from the boat. "Oh wow, you were right," Caroline said, carefully digging through the sand. There was other drug stuff there as well, paraphernalia for cooking heroin or perhaps crack, and Majid packed all of that up separately to be dropped off at the ranger station.

And then he said that it was getting close to lunchtime, and Susie leisurely piloted the boat back the rest of the way. Richard was amazed. Where had the time gone? He hadn't been behind the wheel that long, had he? How long had they been cleaning up trash? Well, okay, the girls had been taking turns at the helm for a while, and picking up trash did take another good while, and he had been going slowly so Caroline could fish out more trash, but... he realized that he had been in the same mental place he was in when Susie was babying him. He had been having fun, and time had flown. He was just glad he had been wearing sunblock; there wasn't a single cloud in the sky.

The other adults had taken the opportunity to go for a walk, and when they all met up, Majid treated them to lunch at a very conventional American diner, and Richard tried not to chuckle at his own unspoken irony. ('So, that kid in the baby bondage last week, what do you think he's eating and how he's eating it? Oooh, you guessed neither 'syrupy waffles and bacon' nor 'like an insatiable glutton'! You lose!') He was next to Susie again, of course, and instead of feeding him this time, she wiped his face with a napkin, prompting a few chuckles from the others.

And then they returned to the boat, with the adults taking another walk and the teens going with Majid to the other end of the lake. The wind picked up a bit, and Richard had his eyes closed for a lot of it, enjoying the sensation of his friends driving him around on the light, steady waves, feeling very, very happy with his station in life.

His deepest fear, the one that had been fueling a lot of his lack of trust and his reticience, was very simple. He had always been worried that he was actually harming himself by indulging his desires - in his initial, furtive explorations, he had even been worried that he was following the path of his father - and that by letting someone else do such things to him, he would be letting that person harm him as well. But he had not caused any harm to himself, and neither his mother nor his friends nor his girlfriend would ever do any actual harm to him. He even judged that if he were to pit himself against a theoretical other Richard, one who had suppressed everything and never entered into that bet with Zoe a couple weeks ago, never even met Susie (just thinking about that made his mind lurch), he was very certain that he could beat that other Richard's ass in any contest of anything. That other Richard would have had his mind on much less important things and wouldn't have even been swimming.

But this Richard, the person he was, drove a boat and cleaned up some more trash (Majid wasn't even directing them, not after he'd found the drug paraphernalia, but the teens were on a mission at that point), and ate another delicious meal at the diner (this time, Susie let him wipe her face), and finally went home with his mother, and he and his friends were all very, very satisfied.

As they continued to exchange texts on the way home, Heather jokingly pointed out that they hadn't been spending time on their phones while they were there, but both of them had replied very simply: why would they? Even if they weren't on a boat, why would they want to do it? Most of the point of them having their phones was that they could talk to each other, which was pointless when they were all in the same place. Heather, much to her children's appreciation, completely understood.

They got home late, and Richard put on his unicorn jammies, popped in his pacifier, put socks on his hands and feet, and asked his big sister to take a picture of him for the Squad chat while he hugged Mr. Flopsy, because Susie had asked to see him like that, and she happily agreed. The enthusiastic, joyful reactions from all three of the others, particularly Susie, arrived within a minute, and he smiled behind his pacifier because he was making his friends happy. This was his new sleeping attire, all cozied up like the childish little sissy he felt like, and aside from his unrelieved erection, he had never been happier.

After taking off his jammies the next morning, because he had to be able to carry his princess should she want it, he began a daily ritual of thirty push-ups and an equal number of sit-ups before showering, eating breakfast with his mother, then putting on his pretty dress and high heels to do housework. That gave him a very expected reaction, but he reminded himself that he shouldn't cum without Susie's help, and that only made him stiffen more. Two days, he forcefully reminded himself. Just two more days. If Susie didn't do something with him on Wednesday - which was very, very unlikely - he'd have to do it himself, he really couldn't take it after that. He wondered if it counted as willpower if he was just trying to be good for his princess, but instead of dwelling on it, he went back to learning hacking, jumping into truly arcane things about databases and learning just who Little Bobby Tables was. His skin started itching a bit and he felt a bit cheated - he had worn a thick coating of serious sunblock, and he was still slightly fried!

Of course, his sister was as well, and it was another at-home day for both of them anyway, as Caroline really had to catch up on the work her dad needed done. Fortunately, she could still drive them on Tuesday, and the swimming that day went much the same way as Friday's had, with Richard chasing Susie around the pool as he had before, ignoring the mild sting of the chlorine on his lightly burned skin. He had another irritation bothering him more. ('One more day! Just one more day!') And then Caroline drove them home, dropping off Leslie as well, and Zoe just straight-up ordered Richard to eat a meal, get a drink, go to the bathroom, and then stay the fuck in his room for three hours. Richard understood completely and did not argue; they were doing the thing that he wanted to do, after all. Deciding that he shouldn't even hear what was going on - it wasn't his business unless Zoe or Leslie decided it was - he put his headphones on to play Starcraft instead.

His dick was absolutely throbbing in his rainbow pajamas that night. Tomorrow, he reminded himself, tomorrow at 2 PM when Susie's father had left. He could control himself until tomorrow.


	16. Perfection

Richard woke up in a state of utter anticipation, almost giddy with excitement, completely hard. He had, of course, dreamt of Susie, and she had done many enjoyable things with him, some of which were unclear and some of which violated basic laws of physics. It wasn't a wet dream, he had never had one of those, but it was very close. It had been easier the previous days, even when he was spending time with her in public, because it wasn't happening that same day - but as the promised time was approaching, it took force of will and self control to not act like a total spaz at the breakfast table, even if he was wearing a pretty pink dress.

Of course, his mother had taken notice of the subtle changes in his attitude, although she certainly wasn't going to say anything about them. He wasn't quite jumping up and down, but the last time she'd seen him act anything like this, it was before a Christmas that he'd actually cared about... was he nine then? Younger, older? She didn't remember. She didn't even remember what it was she'd bought him and his sister. All she remembered was that it was the year she'd kept the presents in the trunk of the car, to make sure that they wouldn't find them early, and then nearly forgot where she'd put them herself.

Neither of them noticed Zoe's look of concern. Zoe knew that whatever Susie really did with him couldn't be terribly bad, otherwise he wouldn't be so desperate to go back for more of it, and she knew that after having enjoyed so much private time with Leslie, worrying about it was a bit hypocritical, but it wasn't the same kind of relationship at all. She dithered for a bit, both of them playing games to pass the time, before she made a decision. Susie had power over him, power freely given but power nonetheless, and besides, he was her little sissy brother so she had the right and the duty to look after him.

'Susie, I really want to know just what it is you're doing with my little brother,' she texted. There, it was out. She'd said it, and it could not be unsaid.

She didn't expect a reply right away and didn't get one. Susie was in the middle of a long conversation with her father, one of the last ones before he left the country, about men and women, puberty, responsibility, and Richard. A lot about Richard. Susie got the impression that she was taking a final exam of some sort. Fortunately, none of the discussion involved traditional responsibilities such as housework or a woman's obedience to her husband; Susie didn't think she could keep a straight face if he started talking about that. And then, as parents do, Majid started talking about himself, and Susie patiently endured it as she had before, and then he told her that Fatima no longer needed to be coming every morning to check on her, that she had clearly shown that she was grown up enough to be fully responsible for the house. Her aunt would still help on request for things like housework, but Susie had assured her father - with a straight face! - that she might need her aunt to help buy stuff and deal with big things like the pool, but nothing else.

After lunch with him, she checked her phone and found Zoe's question trickier than everything her father had said to her combined. She might have replied with something along the lines of 'This is our private time, please respect that' or 'Wasn't I clear at your birthday party that this was for me and him?' But that just wasn't the right way to treat her friend and future sister-in-law. Instead, she texted back, 'Okay, come over and stay for a sleepover, and I'll show you. Bring your rainbow jammies.' She was in on most of it already, and there was something altogether thrilling about completely treating him as her pet right in front of his big sister.

Zoe texted her mother saying where she planned to be with Richard that night, getting 'Have fun, and be careful!' within five minutes, and Susie texted her boyfriend her own instructions. He was to bring his rainbow dress and matching high heels, along with his own rainbow pajamas, and his sense of anticipation tripled. Boy clothes? Why would he need those?

[12:45 PM] Zoe: Sleeping over at Susie's tonight with Ricky.  
[12:46 PM] Leslie: YOU'll be sleeping.  
[12:47 PM] Susie: We will be sleeping ||eventually||! I actually don't mind if you guys come for dinner and stay overnight.

Richard, reading but not participating, felt his pulse quicken. This meant that she was not going to wait to have fun with him from the moment he walked in the door, and they will have been doing it for hours before dinnertime.

[12:50 PM] Leslie: Parents won't be home until late tonight, and Caroline's working.  
[12:55 PM] Caroline: yeah im on lunch break, working a 13 hour day, were so backed up, every single gd uber and taxi in the whole gd greater area wants a plastic shield for corona  
[1:15 PM] Susie: Don't worry about it. We can do it again tomorrow, this isn't a one time thing. It's basically my house now.  
[1:17 PM] Caroline: complete with french maid  
[1:18 PM] Leslie: :laughing:  
[1:20 PM] Susie: LOL, I haven't bought him one of those outfits yet  
[1:20 PM] Zoe: YET  
[1:20 PM] Caroline: >yet  
[1:21 PM] Leslie: :regional_indicator_y: :regional_indicator_e: :regional_indicator_t:  
[1:21 PM] Richard: Just don't expect the accent, I can't do it right.  
[1:21 PM] Susie: Practice makes perfect!  
[1:22 PM] Richard: Oui, madame.  
[1:22 PM] Zoe: Omfg  
[1:23 PM] Leslie: Why is this so funny??  
[1:23 PM] Leslie: You're making me actually hurt from laughing again!  
[1:25 PM] Caroline: my dad came over and asked what i was laughing at, told him it was porn, thats easier to explain  
[1:27 PM] Caroline: 3 walk ins, in last 2 hours fucking kill me

"At least she's getting paid well," Richard said. Zoe had overheard the telltale jingle of bells and met her little brother in the living room as he basically waited on the couch, his phone in hand. He was wearing the full jingling outfit that Susie had given him, bells on his dress and socks and Mary Janes on his feet along with his thick diaper underneath and adorned with the extras that his mother had bought him at the mall. He was just so incredibly cute, Zoe thought, almost like a real Japanese lolita. There was something missing, though. Oh, right, makeup, but it was yet another burning hot day and they were going for a walk soon. Forget it. She wasn't wearing any, either.

"I think her dad's paying her overtime, too," Zoe agreed, suddenly getting an idea she felt like sharing. "Can you imagine if she does marry a charter pilot, and starts a company with him, and becomes a big tycoon and gets as rich as Susie's dad?" Richard was about to say something but Zoe overrode him. "Imagine if she had a daughter of her own who had her own house and found a little sissy of her own to sleep over with her." she continued, gently tapping Richard's nose.

He laughed. "I could see that happening! Doesn't she want to live out in Alaska? There would be nobody to see anything they did."

"Well, unless his big sister checked up on him so he wouldn't get into too much trouble," Zoe said, smiling.

"Thanks for doing that today, big sis," Richard replied, returning the smile.

"Well, of course. You remember, Leslie's dad said you shouldn't be out like that by yourself." He nodded. "So either she picks you up or I walk over there with you. I mean, you could just go over there wearing something a little less bait-y, but neither of us would ever make you do a thing like that," Zoe said in a dominant a tone as possible, and she almost broke out laughing. His smile continued. "God, you are just too precious. Get up and give me a little twirl, Ricky, I want to hear those bells jingle."

He immediately did so, twisting his body to make his dress jingle loudly, and as the dress flared out, Zoe clearly saw his pink, puffy diaper. This time, she couldn't stop the laughter. "Wow, she's got you in that too, huh?" she asked, pointing. "It suits you. Just make sure nobody else sees it." He nodded some more, pleased that his sister was getting into it by treating him this way. The dress was knee length. Somebody at the wrong angle could catch a glimpse, but it was unlikely. "You could actually be an anime character, I swear," she said. "Those are the traditional vestments of the High Priest of Whereverthefuckia, whose goddess commands him to spread peace and love throughout the land with the power of searing holy light. And then you wave your pretty scepter and a building explodes, and there's a bunch of sirens and dogs barking." Richard clenched his stomach in laughter.

They hung out on the couch together until the fateful message finally came: Susie's dad had left, heading straight for the nearest coastline where he was due to embark on one of his own giant cargo ships. Richard was reminded of 'My parents aren't home' memes, and while some other boy might have sprinted straight for her house at top speed, he jingled along, holding hands with his big sister, his phone and keys in his belt pouch.

It was the middle of the day, and they did hurry a bit because it seriously was burning hot out there. A couple of high school freshman boys were riding bikes, doing tricks on the path in front of them, and they openly, brazenly stared at who they saw as girls, one of which was dressed like they'd never seen anyone dressed in the real world before. Richard smiled at them and gave a little, dainty wave. "Hey, um," one of the boys opened a conversation with, "do we go to the same school? I don't think I've seen you before, I'm Jack," he said, holding out a hand to shake because he didn't know what else to do. Richard could have laughed at him. Did he really want to get to know that girl in front of him better? If he did, he'd probably wish he hadn't.

"No, we don't go to the same school, I don't think," Zoe lied but gently shook his hand anyway. She actually did vaguely recognize him, but they didn't attend the same classes. "You're wondering what the outfit's for, it's for a very special event." That part, from Richard's standpoint at least, was not a lie. "I know, you want to date her, but this little cutie here is taken, and you don't want to mess with the boy in that relationship, believe me." Also not a lie, and Richard nodded along. The boy didn't say anything in response, just went back to his bike tricks, but the brother and sister did hear the boys taking pictures. Richard was totally unconcerned and told his sister as much. What were they going to do? Blackmail him? He chuckled, wishing them good luck with that.

Wearing a businesslike black dress, the item that best conveyed total authority in her wardrobe, Susie greeted them at the door, and Richard immediately gave his princess a jingling curtsey before they walked in, and she gave him a kiss in return. "Ricky, your big sister is worried about you and wants to see how I treat you, so act like we're alone," she commanded him, smiling, the thrill visible on her face.

"Yes, Your Highness," he immediately replied, sort of expecting that and enjoying the thrill as well, hoping that his big sister would be okay with this and knowing that she'd never treat him quite the same way again; he didn't want her to, he wanted Zoe to know that this was who he was, this was what he was like when he was with people he trusted. Zoe blinked, a surprised smile creeping up on her face. She had been half-expecting him to call her something like 'Mistress', but that made a lot more sense.

"Let's give those cute feet of yours a break," Susie said very lovingly as she brought him into the living room, reaching for the booties and kneepads, and he immediately undid his Mary Janes and pulled off his socks. The kneepads went on first, and he sat down so she could tie on his booties. "Your hands need a rest, too," she told him, and tied on his padded mittens. The bondage items fascinated Zoe, but the look on his face was the most captivating. He was in a state of sublime bliss, utter euphoria. If she had just walked in, she would have thought that he was high on powerful drugs. "This dress is good for now, but let's keep you safe," Susie told him, and he eagerly lifted up his arms so that she could put him in his reins. "Now, come along. Over my knee," she told him, guiding him as he crawled along, and he did exactly that.

Zoe watched with her mouth partially open. She had known it was something like this, but she had just watched him intentionally and willingly put himself over the knee of the girl he had just called 'Your Highness'. She couldn't recall their mother having ever spanked either of them - she had given both of them the occasional swat as kindergarteners but never anything like this - and the purpose here was totally different in kind and in tone. "Your Highness, what did I do?" her brother asked in a much more meek tone than he had ever used with her, even as Sunshine.

Susie's voice was soft, gentle, and very comforting. "Do? Silly boy. You were perfect this past week. You followed my lead, you did what I told you, you did exactly what I needed you to do. You dealt with your mom the right way, you made a great impression on my dad, you didn't mess up on the boat or in the pool, you did everything right and nothing wrong, you were even a very good boy for your big sister." She said that last part with a smile at Zoe, and then she leaned over and lovingly kissed Richard on top of his head. "I'm not punishing you for anything." She gave his butt a sharp slap with the spatula, making his whole body twitch in surprise and the bells on his dress jingle. Even Zoe jumped slightly. "I'm spanking you just because I want to."

She started in earnest, giving him loud slaps that mostly came from the wrist (she had secretly tested them on herself), occasionally causing him to yelp and whine in exaggerated pain, his dress jingling with every strike, as she whapped his legs just below the diaper - never the same spot twice - as Zoe watched in rapt fascination. She had once seen something like this online with paid actors, but in person - and with her brother! - it was different, and she watched as if she were studying for a test. She visualized herself sitting where Susie sat, or perhaps taking Ricky's place, with Leslie in the other position. Zoe knew Susie wasn't hitting him all that hard - she was bizarrely reminded of professional wrestling - and she gained a better handle on the concept of cruelty. If Susie had invented some excuse to do it, Richard would have been needlessly sad and hurt at having disappointed her; as it was, both of them were very satisfied, with Susie dishing out stinging whacks and Richard happily accepting them as her submissive sissy. Susie wound up her arm for harder strikes, and Zoe looked on in alarm, but the spatula came directly on top of his puffy diaper instead of his bare legs and Zoe tried not to laugh. Susie delivered two more quick whacks to his bottom, just below his diaper, and then put down the spatula and gently patted the lightly reddened area where she had struck.

"Well?" Susie asked in a motherly tone. "What do you say?"

"Thank you for spanking me, Your Highness."

"You're very welcome, baby. Now come along, there's something you have to give me," she said, and she nudged him off her lap, and he eagerly climbed up the stairs on his mittens and kneepads as Susie held his reins, trying not to kneel on the bells on his dress, and Zoe knew that what would have been intolerably humiliating for most other teenagers was foreplay for him. Zoe did not follow, of course; she knew what came next (the two of them), and very soon after Susie closed her bedroom door, Zoe heard the telltale, unmistakable sounds of an irregularly creaking bed. Zoe continued to stand there, mute, her mind a tempest of emotions, arousal not least among them, hoping more than anything in the world that Leslie's treatment worked. She badly wanted to do what she had just witnessed with her girlfriend, but even if Leslie consented, she'd just feel like shit doing that to her screwed-up body. Then again, she thought as she heard her brother and his girlfriend going at it like rabbits, Leslie had been actually hurt, actually abused by her birth parents. The idea would have to be brought up carefully if it were to be brought up at all, a while after Leslie's treatment had - hopefully - worked.

She sat on Susie's expensive, comfortable couch for a good twenty minutes, listening, relaxing, and fantasizing, and eventually it stopped and she wondered what they were talking about up there, but Richard hadn't complained one iota when she'd told him to stay upstairs for three hours. She hadn't wanted him coming down and seeing Leslie sitting on a diaper, especially if Zoe's fingers were in her, and Zoe certainly wouldn't have wanted him listening in on their conversation or even being curious about it, and she could afford him and Susie the same courtesy now that her question was answered. It was probably all lovey-dovey, 'I hope I pleased you, Your Highness' stuff, anyway.

"I had no idea boys could do that," Susie said, still embracing her sissy pet, his leash still firmly wrapped around her hand, her tender-feeling breasts pressing into his baby dress and reins. The two of them had been rolling around on the towels on Susie's bed, holding each other, him staying in her from the top, the bottom, the side. He had prematurely ejaculated less than a minute in, but to both of their surprise, he had simply kept right on going anyway, and he'd come a second and final time. She had come... three, four times? More? It had been a haze of pleasure and lust throughout. That time must have done it, Susie thought, that time was the time that would keep them together for sure, him as her willing submissive sissy baby pet slave forever, and if it wasn't that time, then it would be tomorrow, or the day after that.

"I didn't either," Richard said, still holding her, his padded mitten gently holding her lower curves. God, he'd hit the lottery, he'd hit all the lotteries at once, and he had something else to tell her but didn't want to sound like he was bragging to his princess, his mistress, his forever owner. "Waiting was awful, but I'm so glad I did," he settled on saying.

She understood immediately, smiling and kissing him. "You're such a good boy. I didn't need to put you in chastity after all." She giggled lightly, intentionally. "Of course, now this is what I expect of you. You'll always wait from now on." He drew in a breath. "Don't worry. I won't keep you waiting too long," she said, kissing him on the nose. "Now, how long are you going to keep holding on to me?"

"Until you tell me to let go, Your Highness," he replied, and her heart jumped. 

She giggled again, shuddering a bit. "Let go, sissy boy. It's bath time. Carry your diaper," she instructed him, as was not about to put him back into it for such a short distance. With one mitten carrying the diaper and the other on the floor, he crawled along with her holding his reins, his jingly dress and nothing else over his nether regions. "Zoe, we're taking a bath, do you want to join us?" she called downstairs.

Zoe blinked. She knew it was just a bath, that they were all done with the sex part, but sharing a bath with them and the fluids that she was sure must be oozing... it was all too weird for her. "No thanks," she said, shaking her head. Susie smiled and led Richard in, stripping him of his baby gear and jingly dress, and the two of them sat together, cuddling in the rapidly filling tub.

"I missed this so much," he told her as they held each other close.

"This, and not the last part?" she jokingly asked him.

"Well, yeah, that too, but the after part is just so... perfect." Richard grasped the concept of 'aftercare' but there was no need for it, not with them. She never did anything to him that required that kind of care afterwards. He was just relaxed and happy and at peace with everything. He kind of did want to have sex with her again, lift her up and plant her on his lap for another round, but he was completely spent. He didn't say anything else, he didn't want to ruin anything with more words, like how he was glad Zoe didn't freak out watching them; he just wanted to be with his princess for as long as he could, and she had the same feelings about him, so they stayed in the tub for a good half hour until the warm water stopped being comfortable.

Zoe was watching music videos on Susie's couch, enjoying the 7.1 surround sound, when she saw them. Her mouth opened again, and she turned off the video because it had suddenly become a meaningless distraction. Susie had changed into a simple top and skirt and changed Richard's dress into his shorter one that left his diaper exposed. He was back in his mittens, booties, and reins, but the most shocking part was his head. He had his pacifier strapped in, headphones on his head, and the VR helmet strapped around his eyes. Zoe was certain he was blind and deaf just from the way he moved, from the way that Susie was guiding him with touch, from the way he oh-so-carefully scooted down the stairs on his puffy diaper. "Scoot over," Susie said quietly, and it took Zoe a second to realize she was talking to her, and she moved over a bit as Susie sat on the far side of her, giving Richard plenty of room to curl up on the couch between them.

Zoe experimentally poked at Richard's booties. They were so soft, were there springs inside or something? "Be careful," Susie warned her. "If anything pushes on the bottoms, he'll get poked."

"So he has to crawl," Zoe understood, keeping the same quiet voice. She looked at his face. His expression was mostly hidden, but Zoe was very certain that he was in an even deeper state of bliss than he had been before, as he rhythmically, contentedly suckled on his pacifier.

Susie looked over the very comfortable boy at his big sister. "You look like you want to say something else," she said with a half-smile.

"I don't know what TO say," Zoe replied honestly. "I get that this is his thing, that he's letting you do this to him, I mean, I knew it was something like this, I guess I'm just surprised to see it." She really shouldn't have been, she realized, after the mermaid suit.

"I'm not doing anything to him, I'm doing things for him," Susie replied matter-of-factly. "We have a give-and-give relationship. I give him what he wants and he gives me what I want. What do you think is the worst thing I've done to him, what have I taken from him?"

Zoe looked at her friend, pursing her lips as she thought. There was a bunch of stuff she might have said, but it was all stupid. Susie obviously hadn't taken anything from him that he actually wanted to keep. And the other question, the worst thing she'd done to him? How could that even be a question when he was clearly enjoying all of it? "You're right, you didn't," Zoe admitted. She had wondered whether Susie was going easy on him because she was there, but that couldn't be right. She'd planned all this out, top to bottom, and Zoe being there had not changed her plan.

"And I never will," Susie promised. "He's my pet, and how do I treat my pets?" Whiskers was a very pampered, fully clawed tomcat who ate fish every day. 'Just as long as you don't neuter him,' Zoe might have joked, but they had just done very much the opposite, and she just nodded. She might have asked what Susie was getting out of all this, but the answer to that was even more obvious, not even counting the fact that she could tell him to do nearly anything. Richard had found his answer of what he could give his princess. "Hold this button down if you want to talk to him," Susie said, showing Zoe the microphone. "But I've got a movie for us to watch."

"What's that?"

"Toy Story 1, I've never seen it before. You and I can watch it in 4K, and he gets to enjoy it in 3D," Susie replied, smiling and playing with one of her boyfriend's pigtails. Making this work had taken longer than it should have. She'd even committed a bit of piracy herself because she did not want to explain to her father why she wanted two versions of the same movie.

"I... wasn't expecting that," Zoe admitted as Susie started setting things up on the TV and her laptop, pairing Bluetooth connections and making sure things were synced up. Zoe would have thought that with so much control over Richard's hearing and vision, that she could make him... and there, Zoe realized the problem with her own thinking. Susie probably could make him watch something stupid or overly girly if she wanted to. She just didn't want to. Why would she?

"The first time we did this, we just did radio shows," Susie explained. "His whole world, pretty much all day, was nothing but the radio show and me touching him." Susie took Zoe's look of interest as concern. "He loved it, the time flew for him, he said 'Already?' when he had to go." Susie's imitation of his voice made Zoe laugh a bit. "Right now, his world's just us touching him, and when I push these buttons, it'll be the movie and us touching him," Susie continued, her voice growing more smug, more dominant. She loved being in this position, the power and security it gave her. Other girls around the world had to deal with unruly, adulterous, and obnoxious men who would lie to them, beat them, manipulate them, leave them hanging, and all the other horrible acts of heartbreak and hurt that her pet would never, could never, do to her. And now she was bringing his sister in on it as well.

Susie pushed the buttons, starting both versions of the movie as close together as possible. "Is it working?" she asked through the microphone, and Richard nodded. "There's nothing else in his life right now, Zoe. All he can do is watch his movie and cuddle his princess until I say it's time for him to be a big boy again. If he has to go pee, that's what his diaper's for. I can even feed him through his pacifier, but that's not the plan for today." She caught the look on Zoe's face. "Now, which of us do you envy more, me or him?"

Zoe laughed again. "I kinda want to do some of this stuff with Leslie, maybe take turns, but not while her body's still messed up." Zoe couldn't help but run it all through her mind again: Leslie being cured of her condition had been something they'd anticipated for a long time, and then her birth parents had almost fucked everything up, and then things had been put right by her brother, the very same little sissy baby whose ankles she was idly, unconsciously petting.

Susie nodded and smiled. "Don't tell him this, but one day, I'm going to be like that and order him to take care of me." Zoe couldn't help herself from making an 'Oh, wow' smile of interest and excitement, but the movie was starting in earnest so she didn't reply.

Zoe mused on the irony. She was watching a movie about living toys when her friend had basically turned her little brother into one. Susie was thinking the same thing, idly playing with his cute pigtail, when she felt him tap her three times with his fluffy mitten. Confused, she sat up and looked at him, not remembering right away what it was for, and he did it again. Crap, that was his safeword, why the hell was he safewording?! Fumbling and panicking a bit, she managed to stop both the movies and then started pulling everything off his head at once, unstrapping the pacifier from his mouth. "Ricky, what's wrong?!" she asked, confused.

"The 3D was giving me a headache," he explained lamely. The migraine had been building up for the past ten minutes or so, and he hadn't wanted to admit to himself that he had needed to stop until it started getting bad. He also figured out that she didn't remember his gestural safeword right away and wasn't going to blame her.

"I'm so sorry! I totally forgot that could happen!" Susie apologized. "Are you all right?" He smiled and nodded in reply, and Susie sighed, both in slight relief and in frustration with herself. Her family'd had a 3DTV half a decade ago, back when they were popular, and while she had been fine, her youngest brother and father had both found it unusable. Why hadn't she considered that the same thing might happen to him? Sighing, she looked at the glasses, wondering if she could or should set them to 2D... forget it. She synced up the headphones with the TV and put them on him again, buckled his pacifier back in, and left the glasses off. "There's your answer, Zoe," Susie said. "That was the worst thing I've ever done to him. Oh, and just in case, his safewords are 'boondoggle' and doing something like a tap three times in a row."

"Not using the light system?" Zoe asked.

Susie shook her head. "It's not right for us. Besides, I didn't want to give him a common word." They watched the rest of the movie together. Susie was still mentally kicking herself for having screwed up like that, especially in front of Zoe, but the exchange had actually convinced Zoe that her little brother was in good hands.

"Do you want chicken or beef?" Susie asked Zoe as the movie ended. "Whichever one you pick, I'm doing the other tomorrow, they're not frozen."

"What, you don't have any spam?" Zoe asked, deadpan, and Susie stared at her. "I'm joking, you know I'm joking!"

"I know you're joking! It's a bad joke!" But she started laughing anyway. Richard could feel her laughing but decided not to be curious. If his princess and big sister wanted to include him in the conversation, that was up to them.

"Seriously, which one do you have more of?" Zoe asked.

"Beef, but why does that matter?"

"Leslie and Caroline are coming over tomorrow," Zoe reminded her, and Susie could have kicked herself again. She'd prepared for two; stretching it to three would be doable, but five would be tougher. Zoe was not about to say that Susie was unused to these sorts of practicalities, although Susie was already thinking it anyway.

"Right, making morgh again. And I'm going to need some help from our little sissy here." She started taking off his headphones.

"I can do it if you want, leave him the way he is," Zoe mischievously suggested.

"I'm teaching him. You want to help out, you can do the table this time," Susie replied, unstrapping his pacifier because he might need to talk at some point during the cooking. Before long, he was in his rainbow outfit (the baby dress and rainbow boots just looked silly together), mincing along in his heels as Susie showed him, step by step, how to cook the dish. There were too many steps to memorize at once (oil, onions prepared two different ways, tomato paste, and that was just the start...), but he did remember most of it, and his five-inch heels were constant reminders to be careful with what he did.

"You know he's just going to gobble it up like last time," Zoe said. Her brother tended to eat quickly, and she figured it was a boy thing. She'd been preparing tea while she set the table, giving Ricky a straw for his cup, and she made the reason apparent as she held out his mittens. "Let's slow him down a bit." She'd been thinking of this the whole time.

"Great idea," Susie agreed, and Richard did not complain as his big sister tied on one mitten while his princess tied on the other, leaving him in front of delicious food that he'd helped cook himself but couldn't eat without help. They did help him, of course, taking turns slowly feeding him bites as they talked about the food and how it was cooked, and Richard was part of that conversation, talking normally as if they weren't in the middle of feeding him like a baby.

[6:11 PM] Caroline: cant believe im on a dinner break, my dad calls it that, its been 11 hours already this is not light work  
[6:12 PM] Zoe: Please tell us he's paying you big bucks for this.  
[6:12 PM] Caroline: shit were hauling it in, hes even giving me commissions now, just so tired, 2 more horus to go today  
[6:12 PM] Susie: Your dad wouldn't be putting you through this if he didn't NEED you to do it.  
[6:13 PM] Caroline: i know, he said as much, thats the only thing keeps me going  
[6:13 PM] Caroline: so hows the sleepover  
[6:14 PM] Zoe: We're pampering Ricky like you wouldn't believe.

Zoe showed the chat to Richard, and all three of them shared a long laugh.

[6:18 PM] Caroline: a shoutout to whoever ate that undercooked bat, never let it be said that a single person cant change the world  
[6:20 PM] Leslie: LOL. Can you take me tomorrow Caroline?  
[6:20 PM] Caroline: dad said i can stop at 5 tomorrow no matter what so yeah  
[6:21 PM] Susie: Already planning a dinner for five people. :)

Zoe still found it surprising, even though she knew she shouldn't, that Richard could happily talk about oil temperatures and how thyme and tomato went together even while he was very carefully holding his cup of tea between his padded mittens, sipping it through the straw. But what was surprising about it? He was just him, and he continued to be just him even after Susie untied his mittens so that the three of them could play pool. Richard sunk two balls on his first break, and explained it by saying that they'd been saving up his hands. Heather did check in with them, and Zoe texted back details about the dinner they had just eaten. And then it was pajama time, as Susie explained, dressing herself into a silken shirt-and-pants set that Richard found very wonderful on her, and brother and sister changed into their rainbow jammies. Zoe kept her socks on, but Richard had his booties and mittens on again, pacifier firmly in his mouth and headphones on his head as the three of them watched rare Korean anime together. Then it was bedtime, and as Zoe took a bath by herself, Susie checked Richard's diaper, unsurprised to find it wet. (He'd let go halfway through the anime and didn't even squirm.) She changed him into an identical one, led him upstairs, took his headphones off and plugged them and the remote mic into chargers, helped him onto the bed, and cuddled him like a pillow as she undid his pigtails for the night, telling him what a good boy he was as he suckled on his pacifier.

Everything was just so perfect for Richard, so utterly devoid of flaws, that his mind started wandering into dark places again, thinking of how everything could rapidly go totally wrong. Somebody could T-bone Caroline at 90 miles an hour, Leslie's treatment could fail - that was a serious possibility, it was experimental after all - random horrors could cripple or kill any of them. But Richard knew the odds of that were low, that people were occasionally hurt by things they'd never worry about and nearly all of most people's problems were brought on by their own actions, and he had no intention of bringing problems for himself or anyone he liked. He wanted the rest of his life to be just like this.


	17. Because She Needed It

Richard woke up the next morning to the feeling of Susie unzipping his pajamas. She untaped his diaper and began to rub his penis slowly, and then she moved down and gently took his rapidly hardening length in her mouth. He rolled his eyes back, the rest of his body seemingly placid, his mittens over his head and quietly suckling on his pacifier, and she withdrew her mouth and climbed on top of him, sliding his whole, uncut length inside her with a single, smooth motion. She was practically dripping wet, and her vagina squeezed him tightly as she began to ride him.

Pleasure, deep and rich, took hold as she bounced up and down on top of him and he responded with thrusts from his supine position, the two of them working up a rhythm. He had no idea how long they continued for, how long the bed springs were bouncing as she worked both of them to orgasm. He had nothing in his thoughts but her, how she totally owned him, how she could do anything she liked with him at any time and how he was helpless to resist as she drained him dry of every single drop of semen he could possibly produce. Every time was just as good as the first time, not just the physical pleasure but the connection between the two of them, her complete, natural dominance and his joyful submission. She hugged him closely and he responded with his mittens against her back as he, once more, gradually deflated while still inside her. She hadn't said a single word to him throughout; there was nothing that needed to be said, and he was pacified anyway.

Rational thought gradually entered his mind again and he wondered how many other guys his age woke up like this, in baby bondage and with rich girlfriends determined to use them as male sex toys as often and as thoroughly as possible. He was very, very sure that he was the only one in the entire United States, possibly the entire world, who was enjoying a thing like this.

She nudged him out of bed and he obediently crawled after her to the bathroom in their usual after-sex ritual. She unpacified him to brush his teeth and took off the rest of his baby gear so that he could brush hers, as she had before, and the two of them climbed into the hot water together. She still wasn't saying anything, but there was nothing worth saying that couldn't better be said with kisses and comfortable snuggling in the hot water, and to his complete surprise, she even got out of the tub to use the toilet. He didn't need privacy from her, and she didn't need it from him.

The first words out of her mouth that day were instructions. "Put your rainbow stuff back on, call your mother and invite her for breakfast, and then put the pajamas and sheets in the wash," she instructed him.

"Yes, Your Highness." She loved that phrase and would never get tired of hearing it, rolling it around in her mind in pure satisfaction. It was a phrase she intended to hear quite a lot of in the foreseeable future. Well, that and 'meow'. But Whiskers was a good kitty even if he couldn't talk people words, and the cat greatly appreciated what she did for him: fresh water, fresh kitty litter (Susie was very careful about the whole toxoplasmosis thing), a microwaved mix of ground-up fish and chicken in lactose-free milk (humans would find it disgusting; Whiskers loved it), and, just to make sure, a very tiny sprinkle of ground-up vitamins. And soft care and attention, just like her boyfriend did.

Heather sleepily groaned when the phone rang, but she was very glad to actually be called by one of her children for once, especially given the offer of free breakfast that she didn't have to cook, one more thing she would not have to deal with that day. It sounded like a gesture of goodwill, but she knew that there wasn't a lot of distance between goodwill and manipulation, and she didn't think it'd take long to know which it was.

Richard knocked on the guest-bedroom door while opening it slowly. "Hey, Zoe. Get up so I can wash your pajamas. Mom's coming over for breakfast."

Zoe awoke in confusion, thinking for a brief moment that maybe her brother meant Susie's mom before remembering that the woman was dead. "Our mom's coming here?" The idea was a bit repugnant, but it would have seemed much worse a week ago and utterly abominable two weeks ago. It was just breakfast, Heather still had a job to get to.

"Susie's idea."

"Pffff... all right." She slowly got up. She was not going to get dressed right away, not before she had a chance to soak in that tub of theirs, and she tossed the pajamas outside the bathroom door, luxuriating in the tub for a while before helping them fix up breakfast.

Just as Richard was moving the wash to the dryer, Heather arrived in her work attire and accepted the welcome graciously. Richard greeted her with a big smile once he saw her and walked slowly to the breakfast table. His mother thought it was due to his heels, which she decided not to mention, but he was actually trying to stop his thick diaper from crinkling too loudly. Fortunately - and intentionally - Susie was talking to her, talking about the food she'd made and that she hoped Heather would like all of it.

And she very much did! She could tell that they'd made the French toast themselves even if the sausage came from the freezer. Glasses of milk and orange juice both, like in a commercial. Eggs and not too much bacon. She briefly mused on the idea that maybe they were trying to get rid of her by clogging her arteries, but of course they were all having some. Her determination of good will or manipulation was answered when the request came from Susie: "I'd like to have Ricky and Zoe over tonight again."

"Two nights in a row?" Heather asked with a raised eyebrow. It was a token objection. She'd expected some other request, something worse, even if she couldn't think of what it would be.

"This one's for all five of us," Susie explained. "Caroline can finally get off of work long enough to come, and Leslie's never done this before." Heather judged that mentioning the disabled girl that way was kind of an unnecessary cheap shot, but she'd planned on acquiescing anyway.

"That's fine, then. But he'll be spending Saturday with me," she said firmly. "You too, Zoe," she added, and Zoe sighed softly but didn't argue. "I'd still like to spend some time with them while they're still young," she explained to Susie as if she were an adult, the only other one in the room. It was like they were trading Richard's time like he was an emotional support slave for rent, but he didn't mind too much, particularly because her voice carried a serious note of defeat. Zoe picked up on this as well, along with her mother's pleading look in her direction, and she chose not to complain; their family agreement was still in force, and it was worth it to spend time with her mother once a week or so for the privilege of just not being fucked with for the other six days. She heard the unspoken conversation as well, which might as well have been said out loud:

'He's mine. You know he's mine. You want him to be mine because it leads to you being the mother-in-law of someone very rich, and besides, if you try to take him away from me, he'll make you wish you never gave birth to him.'

'I know all that. But this is a very difficult situation for me, one that I still don't fully understand, and please let me still be the mother of my children while I can. Just give me this.'

'Deal.'

They parted amicably, Heather saying how grateful she was for the delicious breakfast and thanking her children for helping make it for her, and then they were three teenagers with a whole day ahead of them and nothing they needed to do right then. "I've only been to your house that one time," Susie mentioned. She hadn't been paying a lot of attention to what all was in it; something else, namely an incredibly cute boy in an incredibly cute dress, had been a much higher priority.

"Susie, I'll just be straight with you," Zoe started.

"You? Straight? Since when?" Richard immediately interrupted, and Susie started laughing.

"Shut up, Ricky," Zoe said, amazed that she was also laughing, that she even could laugh at that. "Anyway, going back to our house after being here, it's like spending time in a fancy restaurant and then going back to McDonald's."

"A McDonald's that serves spam," Susie replied, and Richard laughed.

"God damn it, you... all right, you got me," Zoe replied. "You want to go over there now?"

"Yeah, I want to go for a walk anyway, and I want to know what you guys do when you're not doing this."

"What, observe the wildlife in its natural habitat?" Zoe asked. "All right. But, seriously, our lives have totally changed over these past couple of weeks. Everything's different. You'll never see him as he was before he met you." Susie nodded in acceptance.

"Should I change?" Richard asked.

"Just the shoes," Susie said, not wanting the jingle to interrupt what she'd been thinking about. Housework did involve a lot of walking, but telling him to walk a mile straight in five-inch heels would have been mean, especially since he would have done it. Great power, great responsibility, and all that.

They took the back paths, enjoying the cool - well, not scorching - morning air and being passed by a familiar cyclist. "I want to know what you think," Susie said after a while. "Is it okay to show... different lifestyles to children? Like, what if your mom was a furry or something?"

Zoe pffffted at the idea of her mother in a fursuit, but Richard tried to take the question seriously. "As long as it doesn't put them into sex, or bondage, or bondage sex," - the girls started laughing - "and you're not forcing them into it and it's not going to mess them up, I don't think there's a problem with it? I mean, normal or not?" He was uncertain of himself. Richard hadn't ever really felt like he had a good handle on what was actually normal, and, from his perspective, neither did anyone else he'd ever met, and that was even before the last couple of weeks. He was wearing a rainbow dress and a thick diaper, his hair done up in pigtails as his princess wanted, and he had only a vague idea how different his lifestyle was compared to the habits of various other people, basically all of whom he thought were weird in one way or another. "I mean, you'll get Karens screaming at you no matter what you do." Susie nodded, seeming to like the answer a lot.

"I feel sorry for people actually named Karen," Zoe said. "We had one in one of our classes. Like three boys got suspended for asking her if she wanted to see the manager. I actually think she's going to legally change her name once she gets out of school."

"Aww, that's so sad," Susie lamented. "I hope nobody does that to, like, Susan or something."

"Kinda doubt it," Zoe replied. "At least nobody's going to do it to me, nobody does anything with the letter Z other than call people zombies," It had been a mild annoyance around a couple of Halloweens. "and Richard has always been called Dick. Although I've never it heard it being used on Ricky here." Richard shook his head.

"Seriously? Richard shortens to Dick?"

"You really didn't know that?" Zoe asked. The gaps in Susie's cultural knowledge were random sometimes.

"I really didn't." She started giggling. "Don't worry, Ricky, I'm not going to call you that, just call for it every so often."

Zoe broke out laughing and started looking around wildly, making sure no one overheard that. This girl! She just decided to keep quiet when Susie suddenly shouted "Bunny!" and pointed out a rabbit in the grass. They were headed in its direction, and a couple of hops later, it was gone. "Back home to his family," Susie said. "There's got to be a burrow around here."

They continued on home, and Zoe was almost expecting Susie to tell him to do chores at his own house, but instead, she asked what they usually did together. And of course the best answer there was Starcraft, and Richard cringed a little inside because he didn't know how well he'd perform under that kind of pressure. In theory, having Susie there cheering him on would do wonders, but it just made him terrified of messing up in front of her instead.

Fortunately, Zoe was playing with him, so that just put them in the 2v2 league, and Richard pulled absolutely no punches and proceeded to summon the largest swarm of Stalkers he could muster in a very short amount of time, utterly and mercilessly crushing one guy by total surprise before proceeding along with Zoe's army to the next, who said something about 'fucking smurfs' before leaving the game. Their phones - and his computer - blooped a few times in a row, but they barely even noticed. Susie playfully kissed him on the forehead for his victory.

Then they got to talking about what else they did, and the Sunshine outfit was inevitably brought up. Susie had never seen it person, so of course Richard obliged her, putting the whole thing on (he was wearing the accessories already) and giving her a little twirl. His puffy diaper tended to peek out from beneath the ruffled skirt, which Susie absolutely loved, and she decided that his yellow pacifier went with it perfectly. "Yellow heels, that's what you need, Ricky," she said authoritatively.

"Call him Sunshine," Zoe suggested.

Susie looked at his shirt. "Right! Okay, Sunshine." She considered what she wanted to play with and how. She could have ordered him to do housework, but the place was actually clean. Apparently Heather had given it a once-over while her kids were out. Oh, right, her phone. She pulled it out and sighed, and the others did as well, reading the angry and misspelled messages.

It was, of course, Caroline. and as they read, she spat out another frustrated message about some asshole who just did not realize that, yes, they would have to actually open up his interior to install the fucking shield, that this wasn't just something held on with duct tape, and the guy had even threatened to sue. He had been so belligerent and so on the edge of threatening physical harm that her dad had almost called the cops. It was, as she informed them, the third time this year that someone didn't realize that a real customs job is car surgery.

"That girl needs a vacation," Zoe said firmly while simultaneously sending a reply of support and hope that things would get better.

"She does," Susie replied, and glanced at Richard and his pacifier. "And I know just the thing."

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Richard pulled out his pacifier to say, a little, conspiratorial smile on his face.

"I think I am," Susie said with a similar smile. "Actually, I just remembered." Susie sent a message to Caroline asking her to pick up a specific cut of beef and some other ingredients on her way to the sleepover, as she intended to prepare an absolutely delicious dinner. Caroline, given something else to think about, eagerly agreed.

The three of them briefly discussed how they might help Caroline to relax that night. Zoe didn't think she'd be up for it at all, Susie was confident in her persuasive abilities, and Richard was of the opinion that they might as well just politely offer it and see what happens.

They had an enjoyable, normal (for them) day. It quickly got hot again, and the air conditioning and circulation in their house was very poor in Susie's opinion. Richard left the jingly stuff behind, but he put his rainbow dress back on and he'd be wearing his unicorn pajamas; Zoe put on a skirt set and brought her own unicorn jammies, and they all wore sunblock, even Susie, before they walked back to her house and spent most of the day in and around the pool, with Richard happily splashing around in his full mermaid outfit. The girls were talking esoteries again, some weird subculture stuff he didn't understand. He was happy as could be, but he just wondered how Caroline would take their idea.

They were not expecting her to arrive the way she did. She'd come early, and she hadn't forgotten to bring the food and Leslie, but she looked and acted very wrong for a 17-year-old girl attending her friends' sleepover. While Leslie was giving everyone a please-understand look of total sympathy, Caroline had a scowl affixed to her face and her left hand, the one not supporting Leslie in her leg braces, was unconsciously clenching. Her eyes looked like she hadn't slept in days, although she surely must have at some point. She had neither changed nor showered, and her greasy mechanic's overalls looked very out of place in the posh interior of Susie's home, like something out of a Dickens novel.

"Hi, guys," she said, some apology in her voice. "Just eight hours tomorrow, yeah, JUST eight hours and then I take her to the pool," she immediately started saying. Caroline's father had agreed that picking up Leslie for her swimming appointments was still important, and she would not be expected to go back to work after that. "I'm sorry, I know I look like shit, I wanted to get the fuck out of there and just wasn't thinking." She had given Leslie the same explanation when she picked her up.

"Actually, that's totally okay," Susie said. It directly led to how they planned on presenting their idea to her - she'd even put the related stuff in the bathroom. "Caroline, we'd like to bathe you."

"Bathe me? As in, wash and scrub me?" She seemed more amused by the idea than anything else, but she felt horrible about being so grungy that her friends were actually offering to clean her up. Why the hell didn't she just take a damn shower and change her clothes, at least?

"Especially your hair," Susie added. Caroline kept her hair up in a bun for work, she hadn't even let it down, and it was a greasy mess.

"You sold me, let's do this." She'd borrowed the phrase straight from one of her recent customers. She left Leslie with Zoe and followed the other two upstairs, and with a total lack of concern for modesty, she started to strip. The hot water looked and smelled unbelievably good, and she even splashed them a little jumping in.

The two began to work. Caroline was so covered in crud that the water actually started to turn grey after some application of soap. "Nobody's going to bother you tonight, are they?" Susie gently asked as she ran her fingers through Caroline's generously shampooed hair, trying to get rid of as much grease as possible. It wasn't matted or a total rat's nest or anything like that. It was just foul, and Caroline reeked of chemicals. Susie wondered if she could even smell those things anymore or if she'd just spent way too much time in her father's shop.

"Pssh. I told my dad, if he calls me it's because either the place is on fire or a war just started."

"When do you have to leave?" Richard asked, scrubbing her back and arms with a loofah. God, that felt good on her skin.

"I'm getting up at five-fifteen in the morning," Caroline said sadly. "Shower and breakfast and shit, gotta go at like five-thirty to get Leslie home." She was leaving a large buffer - she didn't trust herself to actually be on time that morning.

Susie handed Richard a small, metal object. Wait, was that a nail file? No, not quite. Caroline let him use the scraper under her short nails. It wasn't a manicure, but it felt like she thought it might be. She'd never had one. "Any movie you never got to watch but wanted to?" he asked. He'd gone over the exact phrasing of that question with Susie.

"You know, actually.. technically, I did watch it. It was called Gravity, and I saw it in a theater, but I was with a bunch of really stupid kids for some dumb reason. I just wanted to watch the damn movie but they would not stop pestering me and each other. We almost got thrown out." It had been a formative experience and a reason she carefully curated her friends.

"We can get that," Richard replied, switching his attention to Caroline's other hand. He vaguely remembered the advertising for it.

They continued to wash her carefully, legs and chest and face (Susie was the one touching her more feminine bits), and she let out a few stressed half-chuckles at the absurdity. She'd just walked into the rich girl's place looking like the ultimate exemplar of blue collar, and the first thing the rich girl did was clean her the fuck up. Well, Caroline thought, what else was she going to do? A small part of her overstressed mind had actually expected her to be turned away at the door even though she knew that wasn't going to happen. "God, guys, I'm so totally sorry, I didn't mean to make you do this," Caroline sputtered out.

"Caroline, it's okay, you're totally exhausted," Richard said. It was probably the wrong word: car exhaust was one of the things she'd smelled like coming in. "No one's making anyone do anything. You're fine. Nothing bad's going to happen to you tonight." Caroline wasn't used to him, to any boy, being so reassuring, and she really wasn't used to being the recipient of so much sympathy.

"Well, Caroline, I'll give you three choices," Susie said brightly near the end. "You can put those greasy clothes back on, I could find you some stuff out of my closet or even Dad's closet, or, if you'd prefer, you could wear this." She pulled open the compartment under the sink and pulled out a lot of pink stuff that did not look like regular clothes at all.

Caroline gawked. They really wanted her to dress like.... wait, some of that was bondage stuff, that must be the stuff Susie didn't lock him into! No wonder they were asking those questions, they didn't just want to put her in a too-short pink dress, they wanted to basically tie her up! She was sharply, immediately reminded of some of the more disturbing things she'd found online, and brief, confused thoughts waffled through her head about some kind of conspiracy to humiliate her. But that didn't even make sense, Susie wouldn't do something like that and Richard fucking destroyed people who did things like that. Bewildered, she looked at each of her friends, trying to read their faces to grasp what they really intended with this.

"If you don't want to do it, we're not going to call you chicken or anything," Richard hastily said.

Caroline's brain lurched into gear as she felt like she was being invited rather than pressured, the recipient of a friendly dare, and this definitely wasn't some stupid hazing bullshit. Richard had said that nothing bad would happen to her that night and he had meant it. Hell with it, she was too fucking out of it to do any real activities anyway, if they were going to dare her to let them pamper her instead, she was going to take it. "Two conditions," she said firmly. "First is no pictures." She had the idea that they would want to keep things, not for blackmail but just as a record she didn't want stored.

"We can't take pictures!" Richard blurted out, amazed that she even mentioned that. "You're not 18, anyone caught with pictures goes to jail!"

"Yeah, shit, of course, fuck," Caroline babbled. God, she was just messing up on everything, at least she hadn't messed up at work. "Second is, nobody ever brings this up again unless I do."

"Okay, I'm sure Leslie and Zoe will be okay with that," Richard replied.

"They will," Susie added. "Do you want the whole thing or just parts of it?"

"All of it, lay it on me," Caroline brazenly said, going all-in on the dare. These two weren't going to do anything to hurt her, she knew that, so what reason did she have not to just play along? They couldn't even drive yet, they weren't going to do anything to make her not their driver anymore.

But they didn't lay it on her, not right away, continuing to carefully bathe her instead, with Susie scrubbing the inside of her thighs while Richard cleaned under her toenails.

"You don't have any food allergies or anything like that, do you?" Susie asked as she stepped out of the tub.

"Nope." She had been blessed in that respect: she had no allergies of any kind that she knew of.

"Can you tolerate 3D?" Richard asked, thoroughly scrubbing between her toes to get all the crap out.

"Never had a problem before," Caroline replied, and the bathing came to an end, and they dried her off with fluffy towels before laying her down on them to dress her. They'd obviously meticulously planned this out, and for just that reason alone, she felt like she'd chosen her friends wisely: how many other teenagers knew how to properly prepare for things? Even she didn't, not that day. She opened her mouth to receive the strapped pacifier that Susie snugly but gently put on her, once again suddenly and unpleasantly reminded of some of the less savory things she'd found while researching the kink, but this sure as hell wasn't diaper punishment. Diaper reward, maybe? Diaper vacation. The mittens were actually surprisingly comfortable, especially after the day she'd had, and Caroline figured out how the booties worked as soon as they put them on her. They attached the reins backwards after swiftly discovering that the front straps didn't work with her breasts too well, Susie untying and re-tying the ribbon in a trice, and once the rest of it was on, Susie gently lowered the noise-canceling headphones onto her head right after Richard attached the VR headset. Caroline stiffened a bit, realizing that they really did plan on keeping her blind and deaf, expecting a vague something that wasn't coming, and her thoughts lurched again, this time to the concept of trust exercises, which one of her co-workers - or had that been a teacher? - had told her about and she'd never seen in person. She'd been a little creeped out by the concept, but these two probably would be too - a reassuring thought - and she actually trusted them.

But, God, if her co-workers could see her now...! Being the only girl in a shop full of men had its obvious problems, even if her father had been very, very clear that anyone who tried anything was a goner, and Caroline would never tell anyone about her instantaneous, half-formed fantasy of being pushed by her friends in a stroller, dressed just the way she was, and shown off to everyone. Just one glimpse of her this way would fill a couple of their spank banks for the rest of their lives.

She just wondered how Leslie and Zoe were going to handle this.

Even before Zoe guided her to the couch, Leslie knew for a fact that she was hiding something from her. Zoe had been uncharacteristically quiet over text, and she'd been visibly thinking about something as Caroline had gone up the stairs. "Zoe, if there's something you're not telling me, it'll be okay if you do," she said.

Zoe almost puked from the sudden hit of stress. Right there it was. She could lie to her mother like it was nothing, wasn't even really thinking about it with Richard and Susie, but apparently she was just physically incapable of keeping things from Leslie. She considered making something up and discarded it. The idea of just not telling her, of pretending everything was fine, flitted through her mind, but it'd hurt worse and she knew it. Fuck, she was actually going to have to tell her, right out of the gate, she couldn't even hold her thoughts for a week.

"Fuck... all right. Come on. Into the other room." Unwilling to even give anyone else the chance to overhear anything, she gestured to a small home-office that Susie's father used when he was home, and she pushed over the swivel-chair so Leslie could sit down. "Shit, where do I even start..."

"Is this about me?" Leslie asked, reading Zoe's face.

"Yes... it's about us. This is so hard to say... okay, look. It's like Vegas, whatever happens here stays here, do not start talking to your parents about this. I know, you can trust them, but not this. Seriously."

"All right," Leslie agreed.

"Yesterday, I watched Susie give Ricky a spanking," she said. "Not a real, like, serious one, you know what I'm talking about, right?" Leslie nodded slowly. She did understand, she definitely knew of the idea, but just the word was bringing back things she'd rather leave buried. "She was whapping him with a spatula, and they were both getting off on it, and I was just watching this, and I was just, like..." How could she even say that part out loud?

Fortunately, she didn't have to. "It was a kinky thing. And you were thinking about doing it with me," Leslie understood.

"Yes! It's this erotic activity that I wanted to share with you but I wouldn't want to do it while your body's all messed up like that!" It was all coming out in a rush, and Zoe decided that it was best just to admit everything at once. "And I like taking care of you, too, even changing your diapers, but I don't want to turn it into this weird fetish thing because you don't have a choice!" Zoe realized that she was crying a bit, and looked at her girlfriend's face. Leslie's expression was simply disappointment.

"Zoe, you keep on telling me how I'm not a burden, that this is just a physical problem, and you promised you'd share everything with me, no matter what it was, if it's stuff about us," Leslie sadly said, her temper rising for reasons she couldn't explain. That promise had been made multiple times over the past few months. "You could have just told me! I always kind of thought you did, I would have gotten it, it would have been fine, but you broke our promise!"

Zoe had meant that promise when she said it, but she hadn't been thinking that it would include things like this. "I wanted to keep it, I just thought you'd be really hurt if I told you!" This conversation was not supposed to happen, and Zoe had no idea how to fix things now that it was happening.

"Not being told hurts worse!" Leslie yelled, but she simply didn't have the power to yell loudly. Her face was mixed up in conflicting emotions, and she was starting to cry as well, feeling betrayed. Zoe wasn't supposed to be like that to her, Zoe wasn't supposed to pity her or treat her like someone who couldn't care for herself. Leslie was the older and more mature one, despite looking like a prepubescent, and even her girlfriend hadn't fully internalized that fact. It was so frustrating, and in a burst of insight, she found the perfect way to deal with it. "Go get that spatula," she ordered Zoe in a very unfamiliar tone. "Right now."

Knowing full well what Leslie planned on doing with it and deciding that this was among the least bad of the things that might have happened, Zoe obediently retrieved the spatula, and handed it to her hilt-first. "Pants down, over my legs," Leslie instructed her, and Zoe quietly did so. Leslie smirked evilly, feeling like she had a free chance to be the bad guy for once, to be the one causing the hurt instead of taking it. After all, Zoe had just said that she wanted to do this, and so it was with pure irony that Leslie began to do it.

With repeated smacks of varying strength, she took out her anger on Zoe, not just for feeling betrayed but for all the combined frustrations of being a fucking invalid, for her shithead birth parents who treated her like dog vomit and even for her adoptive parents, who were simply too kind, so cloyingly nice to a broken girl like her, for the daily feeling of needing to wait every single day to have a shot at being healed, of not being stuck like this, and if it weren't for that girly-boy brother of hers... and with that thought, she stopped and looked at what she had done, at the red marks she'd left. She hadn't even been thinking about what she was doing, not really. It had been just pure catharsis, a moment of anger and an opportunity to act on it. Had she really just done that to her girlfriend? "Oh, God, Zoe, I'm so, so sorry..." For the first time, she found herself glad that she lacked muscle, and that thought set off the built-up tears.

"It's okay," Zoe said, gently extricating herself from Leslie's lap, pulling her pants back up, and giving her girlfriend a very awkward hug. "It's all okay. You didn't hurt me, Leslie." She couldn't have, she wasn't physically strong enough, that was the whole problem, but Zoe really did not want to say that just then. Leslie's spanks had ranged from something that Susie had given Richard to a barely-there tap. There was some lingering pain from the spatula scraping against her skin with some poorly formed strikes, but the emotional pain, for both of them, was far, far greater, and Leslie's only answer was a few sobbing coughs. "I even said that I wanted to experience it."

"I know," Leslie said through her sobs. "And I never, ever want to do this again." The unfamiliar voice she'd used had been the same tone as her birth father, a voice she didn't think she'd ever actually hear again. Strength or no strength, actual hurt or none, she could never let herself fall that far ever again and desperately wanted to roll back time to before she had done it. What happens there stays there, indeed. Under no circumstances would she ever tell her parents about anything remotely like this.

"Then we won't," Zoe replied. It might be right for Richard and Susie, but it was definitely not right for them. "Are you still mad at me?"

She'd completely lashed out at Zoe, who had simply tried her best to keep things from becoming extremely awkward, but Zoe was asking her if she was mad instead? It was too much, and she just hugged her girlfriend as hard as she could with her deteriorated body, cursing herself for being so, so stupid. "Come on, let's go to the couch, it's softer." Zoe helped get Leslie on her feet, as she always did, and held her all the way there. 

Leslie didn't say anything, she didn't want to say anything. She didn't trust herself to talk. She noticed that the spatula was still in her hand and sharply tossed it onto the table, her emotions sending her down a slope. If Zoe wasn't there, holding her, she might have broken down tompletely. Memories blazed through her head, of her birth father insinuating that she'd somehow given herself Duchenne's and had no right to have it as a girl, her birth mother calling her a struggle. That was the word she always used. Leslie was a 'struggle' to her. She thought she'd gotten over this, especially after Richard had put them where they belonged, but she didn't know when she would truly be over it. "Please don't break up with me, Zoe, I didn't mean it..." she begged, and the worst part was that it was a lie. She had definitely meant it.

Zoe was alarmed at Leslie's emotional collapse. "Leslie, you're taking this way too hard, you really didn't hurt me. It's okay. I don't want to break up with you." Leslie just nodded and they sat there in silence for an indeterminate amount of time, Leslie resting her head against Zoe's shoulder, feeling like complete shit.

"I didn't even finish telling you everything," Zoe said to break the silence. "She really put him in some... it's not like hardcore real bondage, but he had these headphones and the VR goggles on, and he had these mittens and booties, and of course a dress, it was actually kind of cute..." The upstairs door opened, and the girls on the couch turned to see who was coming down the stairs. Leslie didn't even understand what she was looking at right away. "He was like that. He was exactly like that," she said, as Susie and Richard gently guided Caroline down the stairs butt-first. They'd actually gotten her, the tough girl, the car girl, to do this! "I've gotta know, what'd you say to her?"

"We simply offered, that's all." Susie said, a bit imperiously. "She's clearly not the only one interested in experiencing new things." The spatula was visible on the table, and it was very, very obvious that Zoe and Leslie had just had some kind of seriously emotional moment. Neither Richard nor Susie was going to pry.

For Zoe, mortification blew in and out like the breeze. In a normal place, with normal friends, having clearly just undergone a spanking session with her girlfriend and having everyone know it would have been never-live-it-down embarrassing, but her brother and his princess were just such completely kinky fuckers that this barely even registered. Abruptly, despite her still slightly stinging right butt cheek, she laughed out loud, and Leslie started laughing as well.

Leslie's laughing stopped well before Zoe's did. "Seriously, you're not bribing her or something?"

Susie grinned. "In a way, this is the bribe. It's like I told Zoe when I was doing this with Ricky," she explained patiently. "We aren't doing anything to her, we're doing things for her."

"She was totally worn out," Richard said, and Leslie nodded. "If she taps on something three times or says 'boondoggle', it means she wants out, and don't ever mention this again later unless she does." Both of them understood.

"Leslie, would you please keep her company?" Susie asked, handing her the microphone. "You can hold down the button to talk to her."

"Okay," she replied nervously, agreeing more because she didn't want to disappoint Zoe than anything else. This didn't make sense to her. Caroline had declined her invitation of being her diaper buddy when she'd first asked months ago. Now, she was wearing a very thick one. Her friends helped her scoot over and helped Caroline crawl onto the couch, where she blindly, slowly felt around with her padded mittens and put her head onto Leslie's lap, uncomfortably reminding her of her own diaper.

"Zoe, would you please help us make dinner? Five's going to be a lot," Susie continued.

"Sure thing," Zoe replied, and gently blew Leslie a kiss before going to the kitchen with the other two. Leslie looked up sharply as Zoe picked up the spatula. Oh, right, she was actually going to use it to cook. Caroline's head was still on her lap, and even with the pacifier in, Leslie could tell that she looked calm. Still, though...

"Caroline, are you really okay with this?" Leslie nervously asked into the microphone, and she even felt the older girl nodding. All right, then. Zoe hadn't freaked out, this was something that Susie and Richard did together, Caroline seemed content, she was the only one feeling weird about it. Whiskers caught her attention, jumping up onto the arm of the couch, and she petted the cat while idly stroking Caroline's hair, closing her own eyes - the crying had made them tired - and suddenly understanding why they'd asked her to look after Caroline. Not having anyone around while you were helpless and couldn't hear or see would have completely terrified Leslie, at least, and as her illness and her birth parents had gradually gotten worse, she'd started developing a serious fear of the dark and had quietly cried herself to sleep more than once. There would be no more of that. It was her birth parents' turn to cry themselves to sleep, and she visualized them in dank cells sleeping on concrete bunks with threadbare blankets.

She shook her head. It wasn't right to be thinking about such things when she had Caroline resting her head on her lap. 

Susie's voice was commanding as usual. "Okay, we're good with just us for now. Ricky, go torrent the 4K version on my computer and the 3D on my laptop, then wash Caroline's clothes. Not with anything else. Use a full load of soap and turn on extra rinse." Leslie smiled a bit on overhearing that. They were filthy and probably contaminated with God knew what.

"Yes, Your Highness," Richard eagerly replied with a dainty curtsy before realizing his mistake - Leslie hadn't been in on that particular bit, and the girl giggled a bit on hearing it from the other room. But who cared, really? They were all in on everything by that point. He stopped by the couch. "Is she comfortable?"

"Yeah." She was definitely that, if nothing else.

"Are you comfortable?" he asked, trying to sound as mature and adult as possible.

"I'm fine. Thanks for asking," she said, smiling for the first time in a while. "Actually... never mind. When you're done." Richard gave her a curtsy as well and minced upstairs in his heels to get the torrents started - easy for him - and retrieve Caroline's clothes.

Caroline had found a comfortable place to rest her head on Leslie's lap, facing upwards, suckling on her pacifier gently. She didn't think she'd ever really get used to that, but it didn't feel bad in her mouth, just a little awkward. She wondered how long they planned on keeping her this way, but that was dumb, she'd given them the answer. She smelled the cooking beef and smiled behind her pacifier, immediately realizing that they planned on feeding her what she'd brought over. The night's entertainment was the movie she'd picked out, and then they'd send little baby Caroline upstairs for an early bedtime because she needed to get up early, but she didn't want to think about getting up in the morning. Instead, she mused on how she'd been doing quite a lot for her friends and then they'd up and flipped it. It wasn't just that they were doing it, it was the fact that she could spend a whole night like this and literally nothing bad would happen to her. She was actually, completely, safe in their hands. With any other group of people, this would all be life-endingly humiliating, a feeling that was palpable by its absence. Here, there were no repercussions and everyone was in on the joke. Cripes, had she seriously lucked into them, a group of people that could dare her to do something like this and there wouldn't be any problems for taking it? Fuck, she'd drive them to the moon if they wanted. 

She relaxed there on Leslie's lap, smelling star anise and other spices, and after a while she was nudged to sit up for a while before laying back down on Leslie's lap. What was different? Oh, right, they'd taken her leg braces off, those must be uncomfortable to sit in for long periods of time. They weren't doing much for her anymore anyway, and Caroline really hoped that the treatment would work, because the way things were going, Leslie wouldn't be able to walk at all in a few months. Caroline's mind was still tired and disordered, and she thought about how the treatment was almost canceled, and then she figured that the scariest part about Richard's Jedi shit was that he could just reach into an ugly situation and pull out the broken part, like a mechanic, and that led to her daydreaming mind going over all the work she'd had to do that day.

As she'd expected, she was pulled off Leslie's lap again, and then after a minute or so, she was gently pushed into a crawling position into the living room and then Whiskers started licking her face. Richard's voice was clear on the microphone: "He did the same thing to me!" Caroline laughed, and she was helped up to the chair. Someone unstrapped her pacifier and she eagerly opened her mouth to be fed.

She had absolutely no idea what she was eating, except that it was made with rice, onions, and beef. She definitely tasted star anise. The spoon left her mouth just so, and she was certain who had done it. "That was Ricky," she said.

"Correct," Susie said into the microphone.

Caroline kept on guessing who was feeding her. Leslie was easy - too easy. Zoe and Susie were indistinguishable. Richard was notable for the way that he very carefully tried to put the spoon in without touching her teeth. She guessed Leslie once but it turned out to be Richard, intentionally making it feel like Leslie's hand was guiding it. And then Caroline made a drinking motion with her mitten and someone helpfully put a straw to her lips. Wait, was that some sort of Persian chocolate concoction? It was deliciously rich, and she nearly downed the whole cup in one long guzzle. They kept giving her more of it, because she obviously enjoyed it so much, and then they buckled her pacifier back in and she suckled on it experimentally, feeling like there was something else going on. The water flowing into her mouth came as a bit of a surprise, but she drank her fill before they detached it.

She was guided to the floor again, and suddenly she felt a weight on her back. Oh. Of course. Why would they carry Leslie when Caroline could give her a perfectly good piggy-back ride? It occurred to Caroline that they were certainly talking about her, making amused comments and probably saying how sweet she looked carrying Leslie around (she could tell that Leslie was the one tugging on her reins, encouraging her to crawl back to the couch). 

She was helped up onto the couch again, lying face-up on all four of them, Susie at her head and Leslie at her feet. The movie started up, much like she'd expected it would, and she nodded when Susie asked if everything was working. 'Helplessly babified' would probably not have been her preferred method of movie watching, but it worked very well, the exact opposite of what she had gone through the first time, as absolutely nothing outside herself was going to distract her. She was wondering if the others might be watching or doing something completely different, but a little ways in, she was very sure that was not the case; the people she was laying on reacted at the tense moments in the film, although they did have to get up to do something in the middle of it.

A gurgling in her guts - the result of the junk food she'd had earlier in the day - diverted her attention. She almost mumbled something about wanting to go to the bathroom before realizing that they had indeed babified her and she was wearing a real diaper. Hell with it. They'd signed themselves up for the other side of this. She clenched and ripped a fat, messy one straight into her diaper, unloading a powerful stream of urine along with it. Smiling behind the pacifier, most of her attention still on the movie, she let herself be guided down to the floor, feeling a towel under her.

They untaped her and her genitals were exposed while she was blind and deaf, and it mattered not a single bit because she could actually trust them, and they took off her soiled diaper and Susie carefully wiped her front-to-back, then the hands motioned for her to lift her hips again and a new, fresh diaper was taped underneath her, and she was gently brought back up to the couch. There was no anger nor frustration in their actions. She had just crapped herself like a baby on purpose, and it was completely okay. It didn't even interrupt the movie.

It came to a close, and she was very glad to have actually watched it instead of a bunch of obnoxious children this time, and she happily crawled along as someone led her up the stairs. Wait, they were leading her back to the bathroom? Her pacifier was unbuckled, and she was told to open her mouth, but she didn't understand until she felt the toothbrush, and she laughed a bit as Susie started carefully going over her teeth. They put it back in and led her into a bedroom, not Susie's but one that one of her brothers had used way back when, and the bed was very soft and comfortable. The goggles and headphones were pulled off, and Caroline realized on seeing their smiling faces that they were about to leave her there for the night, so she started quickly tapping on her pacifier. Richard immediately undid it for her. "What's wrong?" he asked.

"I won't be able to sleep with that in," she explained. "The rest is okay." The short dress was silky and the fresh diaper was surprisingly comfortable for sleep. "Good night, Mom. Good night, other Mom," she joked.

"Good night, sweetheart," Susie and Richard replied at the exact same time, and then looked at each other and laughed before turning off the lights and walking out together.

There were creaking noises a while afterwards, but Caroline was too tired to care and let herself fall asleep to them.


	18. Of Almosts and Never Wases

Caroline woke up slowly the next morning, feeling somewhat muddled, hearing the same faint creaking noises she'd fallen asleep to. It was so early that the sun hadn't even started coming up yet even in mid-June, and she knew that it was well before 5:15. She wasn't confused as to what they'd done with her - she waved the padded mitten around, as if to show herself it was still there, perfectly tied to her wrist - she was confused as to why she'd let them do it. Oh, right, she'd treated the whole thing like a giant dare. What the hell had she been thinking? She really hadn't been clear-headed, she realized, it was almost like she was drunk or in a stupor. Richard had been right about one thing: she had been totally exhausted.

She got the idea that she should really be feeling outraged at them taking advantage of her when she wasn't capable of making good decisions, but the emotion wasn't forthcoming. There certainly wasn't anything in the realm of non-consensual, so it was like she'd told Richard: she didn't get to pretend that anyone else had made her do it. Yeah, it was weird and fetishy, but they had been exceptionally kind to her every step of the way and would leave no lasting anything, so even if she hadn't been entirely thinking straight, she wasn't angry at them for this. She didn't even think she regretted it. She just didn't know whether or not she wanted them to do it again, and contradictory thoughts floated around in her mind for a while.

She looked around the room for her phone so she could check the time, realizing that she'd have to get the mittens off before she could even use it, and then she suddenly noticed the digital clock, placed there for this exact reason. It had been showing 4:50 right in her face, where she didn't even notice it. She let her head hit the pillow again, and she realized only then that her left arm was cuddling a large tiger plushie. When did they give her that? No, they never did, it must have already been in the bed with her. She had been totally out of it, she still was, and her dreams were a half-remembered mess.

At least she had almost a half hour before she'd have to worry about adult things. Just eight hours of work that day, she told herself, eight hours of cutting and grinding polycarbonate (just thinking about it made her hear the sound of the angle grinder again) and customers comparing their professional work to DIY crap from Amazon and her dad telling her what goes where. She was comfortable the way she was, she didn't want that clock to hit 5:15, and she finally admitted to herself that she was actually savoring this and had been enjoying it the whole time.

It was only then that she realized what the creaking noises were, as full awareness finally returned to her. 'Hey, you two, can you keep it down, there's a baby trying to sleep here!' she considered calling out, laughing at herself a bit for thinking it. She felt a gradual flush creep up, and with surprise she found that she actually was getting kind of turned on by this, and she wondered if the man of her dreams really would do this with her. (Of course he would, she realized. Almost any man worth the name wouldn't hesitate to put her in this stuff if she asked, especially if sex were involved. Men were like that.) The noises did stop after a while, and she laid back in genuine, light bliss, trying to savor the moment, occasionally rubbing her diaper with her mitten and smiling, immersing himself in a dream of her burly, wealthy husband lovingly pampering her in their luxuriously furnished cabin in the middle of nowhere.

The door opened at 5:10, Susie and Richard walking in together, both of them in dresses - his rainbow, hers purple - and smelling faintly of shampoo, with Richard carrying a tube with a bag of yellow, viscous fluid on one end. Banana milkshake? Wait, that was food, wasn't it? It had to be, it might have kind of looked like an enema bag but Caroline would have gone 'Hell no' and both of them had to know that.

Noticing that she was already awake, Susie gently, brightly asked "Feeling better?" as Richard turned on the lights, but fortunately there was a dimmer and he didn't turn it up very much.

"A lot," Caroline admitted. It had been some of the most restful sleep of her life.

"Breakfast in bed?" Richard offered, and Caroline noticed that the tube was attached to the end of the pacifier. Right, that was what they'd done with the water.

She was not going to deny them this last thing, not with five minutes to go, and she answered by opening her mouth, and Richard gently strapped it in. It wasn't banana milkshake, Caroline realized: it was some sort of milky lemon meringue, and it was absolutely delicious. Sitting on the side of the bed, Susie ran her hand over the older girl's head, smiling as her boyfriend fed Caroline her breakfast.

God, it was like they were her actual parents, but not her real ones, just a dad and mom - well, from the way they were dressed, two moms - taking very good care of their little baby girl, giving Caroline a sensation she hadn't felt in a very, very long time. Eventually, the bag ran out, and Caroline looked over and sighed through her pacifier. 5:12, 5:13. Two more minutes and she'd have to be responsible for things again. Eight hours, just eight hours, she reminded herself again, and she'd get a substantial amount of money for it - even by adult standards - and then after swimming, she had the afternoon to herself.

"Don't want this to end?" Richard asked in total understanding, unbuckling the pacifier. Cripes, that kid - and Caroline still thought of him as one - was so astute when it came to things like this. Then again, this was his thing.

"Don't tell... oh, who am I kidding." Zoe and Leslie would know that she had enjoyed this just looking at her, if they didn't already. "Thank you. I think I needed all that," she said, as her friends pulled down the covers to untie her mittens and booties. Caroline noticed that Richard was diapered and figured that he probably had been all day yesterday. "I was totally fucked up when I said okay, but I am not gonna look back and say, oh no, they did something horrible to me." She abruptly realized that she had been fundamentally absent for a lot of what had gone on that day. "Was Leslie okay with it? She sounded kinda nervous."

"She was all right, she had other things on her mind," Richard said, not wanting to explain further.

"She and Zoe were more interested in each other," Susie added, and Caroline nodded, smiling. She was sure she hadn't missed anything important.

"Yeah, do I believe that. What'd you do with my clothes and phone?" Caroline asked.

"Right there," Richard pointed, and of course her phone was on top of the clock, plugged into a charger, and her clothes were by the bed, neatly folded and washed. Richard really had used the strong stuff; stains she thought were permanent were a little bit less so, and the greasy feeling was entirely gone.

"Shit, I'm not Michelin, but with room service this good, I'll give you guys five stars. Just not sure how many people would visit a hotel like this." That got a few light giggles.

"You've been driving us everywhere for a long time," Susie pointed out. "We had to do something for you."

"Not how I would have expected to be repaid, but let's call it fair," Caroline replied, swinging her legs out of bed, realizing she was still in the diaper, and she was not about to wet and mess herself a second time. She was about to say that she didn't want to do any of this again any time soon, but that wasn't right. "If I ever get that tired again, I'm probably going to ask you to do this again," she openly admitted. It was weird, being that straightforward with something like that, but this was her Squad and they didn't keep secrets from each other, especially not after they'd spent so long babying her.

"If we can, we will," Susie promised, and she and her boyfriend left her alone to change.

The thought crept up on her: she'd stay in her diaper and put her clothes on over it, and the loud noises of the mechanic shop would hide the crinkling while the all-pervasive petrochemical smells would mask any odor. It was a dumb fantasy, never something she'd actually do, but just the idea made a strange heat well up inside of her, and her hands were free so she could reach down into her diaper, and she sat by the bed, biting down on her tongue to keep herself quiet as she curled her fingers near her clitoris and quickly rubbed herself to climax at the mixed thoughts of having a well-hung, strong, and loving husband, identity yet unknown, find out her secret fetish that her friends had given her and keep her just like that every single night, pampering her in every sense of the word before her husband-daddy took off her diaper and made firm yet tender love to Caroline, his baby girl.

'God, did I seriously just jill off to that?' She had, and she'd even left a large wet spot in there from it. Fortunately, her friends were not the sort of people to closely inspect the contents of worn diapers, and she balled it up and tossed it into the bathroom trash. She just wanted a quick shower, but the giant Jacuzzi was right there and it felt like a crime not to use it again, even if she had no time to soak.

She dried herself off as quickly as she could and put on her freshly washed and very nice-smelling clothes. Right, it'd been too long, she needed to get going, and she found Zoe and Leslie sleeping together, limbs entwined, on a bed in the other room, and she wondered who had done the carrying to get her up there.

"Hey, wake up, we gotta go," she said, and the other girls looked at her bleary-eyed. Caroline was very sure that they'd been doing girlfriend stuff for hours last night.

"Caroline..." Zoe mumbled sleepily but not finishing her sentence. Right, right, it had to be the right time, Caroline had to leave, she was in a hurry...

"You can go back to sleep, but I have to take Leslie home."

"Let me get my pills," Leslie replied, trying to prop herself up on the bed, and Caroline realized just how impossible it was for her to sit up by herself and helped her with that, handing her the necessary bag. Two of these, one of those, taken without food first thing in the morning. She'd been looking after Caroline yesterday but now everything was back to normal, her being driven, being helped, being taken care of because she had to be. She and Zoe had had a long conversation last night about just what Zoe didn't really want to treat her like. Wednesday, it would all start changing Wednesday, it had to, it was three treatments in one, they couldn't all fail, could they?

"Crap, I should have woken you up earlier, could have gotten in the tub with me," Caroline said as she changed her diaper on the bed and helped her get dressed.

"It's fine, I'm going to deal with all that at home," Leslie replied. She didn't want to be woken up at all, but being stapled to other people's schedules was a sad fact of life for her. Caroline didn't know how she got up the stairs, but it was certain how she'd get down: by simply being picked up. Caroline had lifted and carried automotive parts heavier than Leslie was, although, like Richard, she couldn't exactly make a running leap carrying her, and she took the stairs carefully.

Breakfast - the same stuff they'd served Heather - smelled absolutely delicious and Richard and Susie had just finished making it, but... "I was going to eat at home," Leslie said, but there was no way she was going to leave this untouched. It would be rude and it smelled too good.

"And I'm really out of time," Caroline said, but she headed over there anyway. The meringue had been just an appetizer; what was sitting on the table was a meal. She thought she'd given herself plenty of time, but she had to be at work at six and getting Leslie home first made it at least a fifteen-minute trip.

"Don't worry, I'll eat what you don't," Richard replied, and Caroline set Leslie down on a chair before taking one herself. Five minutes, she could eat this in five minutes, right? And there was coffee, she needed coffee, she needed all the coffee, she needed to get that pacifier back on and hook it up to a giant vat of coffee. She knew what she was drinking was some expensive Iranian blend, and, to her hosts' amusement, she chugged it like it was crap from an undercleaned thermos at the gas station. Wait, had she been thinking of them as already married or something? Cripes, that was about how it felt. She didn't have time to think about it. She, like Leslie (who, to her credit, was actually very methodical in rapidly getting food to her mouth) just had time to eat.

And then they were moving, Richard helping carry Leslie's possessions (including leg braces) while Caroline carried Leslie and Susie opened doors. The weather was a little chilly, but Caroline just didn't have time to care. "Guys, seriously, thanks for everything yesterday," she remembered to tell them.

"You're welcome, drive carefully!" Richard cheerfully replied as Caroline started up the car.

"Don't I always?" she asked with a wave and then, making sure Leslie was securely buckled in the center middle and that she had everything with her, drove off. Maybe it was because she was in a big hurry, but it had felt like nothing at all had happened. She knew she need to stop expecting weird things rather than just a fast bath and a quick breakfast, but everything had been so weird that it was even weirder that the weirdness would just stop. She just hoped Leslie was all right.

"I hate that," Leslie suddenly said, crossing her arms against the morning chill.

"Hate what?" Caroline asked quickly. Crap, was this about last night? Or was it the fact that she hadn't really asked permission to pick her up, and there wasn't any time to get her leg braces back on, but Leslie had to have been...

"Rushing," Leslie replied. "Especially when I eat. It's not that it hurts, it's... when I was little, if I didn't eat fast enough, my parents would just go 'Looks like you're not eating it' and take it away."

Caroline was relieved that it didn't have anything to do with any of them, but it was still awful to hear about. "Damn, Leslie, is there anything they didn't do?"

"They didn't care. That's what they didn't do."

"Damn... by the way, you weren't weirded out by what happened last night, were you?"

"A little bit, at first," Leslie readily admitted. "But you were into it, and they were always checking that you were okay." Leslie was not going to tell her about the bad stuff between her and Zoe. It was private and she wanted it forgotten about forever. The fewer people who knew about that, the better.

"Yeah, that's them." It escaped neither Caroline nor Leslie that their friends were actually good at looking after people.

The heater started to turn on, coating the interior in warm air, the early-morning sun not quite in Caroline's face, but close. She checked the time at a red light of a large intersection - she'd make it for sure, it wasn't like there was any traffic out there, and all she could hear outside the car was a faraway siren. The coffee was starting to hit, and she wondered if maybe she'd had too much. The light turned green and she lifted her foot off the brake, but she noticed something out of the corner of her left eye, and she turned her head to look before touching the gas.

A Honda Civic came screaming towards the intersection at faster than highway speeds, and Caroline slammed the brake back down instantly. It blurred about fifteen feet in front of her, and Caroline was about to call 911 before she heard the siren - no, sirens, plural - getting louder very quickly, and three cops, lights flashing, blasted through the intersection after the other car. "Kill his ass!" Caroline blurted out at the cops, even though Leslie was the only one who could hear her.

"What happened?" Leslie asked, looking up. She'd been fooling around on her phone.

"We almost got wasted by some nutjob," Caroline replied, heart beating furiously and breathing heavily, making herself calm down, it had happened in moments and it was over. The light had turned red again, some sort of sensor, but once again it turned green and Caroline made sure nobody else was going to come flying through there before she touched the gas. If she hadn't been paying attention - if she'd been distracted, if she just hadn't seen that psycho coming - if, if...

'Drive carefully,' Richard's words echoed in her head, and Caroline made herself remember that coincidences happen, he wasn't actually psychic, that kind of thing wasn't real. It was a common thing to say, everyone knew that car wrecks were dangerous, it wasn't like drunks cruising around in the early AM were as rare as they should be, but holy hell was that some spooky wizard shit.

At least it gave both Caroline and Leslie something to talk about with their parents instead of telling blurry half-truths.

Zoe woke up for the second time, sitting up in bed, wondering if she was late for school. Oh, right, it was the summer and there was a pandemic, there was no 'late for school' and probably wouldn't be for a really long time. She did remember where Leslie was, though, and she also immediately remembered the stuff they'd done yesterday. Just a bunch of roleplaying, she and Leslie had agreed.

She went to the bathroom, the one they all used with the big tub, and saw something that was not roleplaying. Richard really was seriously cleaning the tub wearing his pink kneepads and his rainbow dress, his five-inch wedges facing her as he bent over to scrub. He turned his head to look. "Almost done, Zoe!" he called back. The tub got kinda grody after a couple weeks of people using it, especially since Majid had been in the thing, but it was nothing that a sponge, good cleansers (Susie had bought some more of those last week), and a bit of elbow grease couldn't remove immediately.

"It's all right, she's got as many bathrooms as people right now," Zoe replied, heading off to another one. She would have killed to have grown up with that. She'd once browsed housing listings for fun, and in her opinion, any architect who thought '3BR/1BA' was acceptable was a certifiable, mustache-twirling Satanist.

She relieved herself and brushed her teeth - she didn't even know whose toothbrush that was, so she thoroughly sanitized it, before and after - and found Richard gathering up the sheets. Oh crap, of course it was him doing it, who else would it be? She and Leslie hadn't really been concerned about leaving damp spots last night, but fortunately he didn't seem to notice (he actually did notice and was very good at pretending not to care; those weren't the only damp sheets in the house), and so she took a bath in the freshly washed tub.

He was still cleaning when she was done, scrubbing pots and pans with a Brillo pad, the floor already mopped and the other dishes already washed. "Breakfast's in the fridge, big sis," he told her. That was their family's habit: breakfast was made for everyone once, if someone didn't wake up early enough for it, it went in the fridge. Soggy cornflakes? As their mother had often told them, that was their problem. Zoe usually just ate them anyway, and it wasn't like these foods got soggy in that way.

"Really should get you that maid dress," she joked. Richard had done more housework since all this started than he had in the rest of his life combined, she was sure of it.

"Yeah, I really need one," he replied with a little smile, setting aside a very well-scrubbed metal pan, and he was not joking. Zoe didn't think she'd ever get used to watching her brother actually do this stuff for real.

"So where's your princess?"

"Out finding the cat, he's down the hill somewhere, she says he does this sometimes." She microwaved the dinner, and it was still utterly delicious even reheated. Her brother finished his chores and sat down with a cup of tea - her brother, actually drinking real tea by himself of his own volition - taking the weight off his heels. Susie came back in a few minutes later, Whiskers in her arms, and immediately started brushing the cat's fur, looking for parasites.

"What was he doing down there?" Zoe called out.

"Chasing rabbits, as usual," Susie replied.

"He ever catch one?"

"This cat? I don't think he'd know what to do if he ever did. Isn't that right, Whiskers?" She gently brushed under the cat's chin, eliciting a soft purr. "The only food he hunts is the stuff in his bowl." She set Whiskers down and the cat seemed to agree, heading straight for it. "All done?" she asked Richard, glancing long enough at the teapot for him to get the message and pour her a cup.

"Wash is going, five minutes left," he replied, and she nodded, sipping the nicely warm tea. It was the good stuff, of course, her father having given her an extremely refined palate for this sort of thing.

"So, Zoe, I'd like to make a bet with you," Susie told her after a bit. "We believe that Caroline is going to want to be babied again within the next week."

"No bet," Zoe decisively replied. "She wants that when she's overworked, right? She's not going to be underworked until every driver service in the city gets that shield she keeps talking about. I'm pretty sure she's already backed up for days."

"She wasn't 'backed up' last night," Richard replied. Susie pffted a little tea back in her cup. Zoe held her hand in her face as she laughed.

"You wanted him, you got him," Zoe told Susie, still laughing. "There he is, he's all yours. I was going to auction him off, but I'm pretty sure you're the highest bidder anyway." Susie kept laughing. Even Richard started chuckling, before he checked the clock and started mincing his way to the laundry room, Zoe hearing some faint crinkling as he did. Susie watched him go, smiling. Zoe's tone got a lot more serious in a hurry once he left the room. "You're actually using him as a slave. You know that, right?"

Susie's voice was aristocratic and firm. "Just because I completely control him doesn't mean I don't love him." That phrase was largely taken from something she'd found somewhere, and she would never tell either of them what nor where. "Making the beds is the last thing he's doing for me today, and I'm going to help him." She had learned from a very early age that two people cooperating with the sheets and blankets on the large beds could get things done in a quarter of the time that one person could. "Considering I tied him to mine last night, it's only fitting."

Zoe couldn't even laugh. "You what." 

"It wasn't tight at all, I wasn't going to stretch his arms and legs all night, but yeah, he was spread eagle, four-poster bed," she replied, smiling. "I like him like that, and guess how he feels about it." At least one part of him had been very enthusiastic.

"I swear, it's like you're in another galaxy, another dimension. I walk in that door and I'm in the Twilight Zone, and I don't mean a remake, I mean the 1960s, Rod Serling, black and white, OG Twilight Zone." There had been a very brief period in fifth grade when she'd actually had a crush on the host before realizing that he was, of course, long dead. She sighed. "Well, just... don't hurt him, I guess."

"I'm not going to take him away from the things he loves, and I'm not going to make him do anything he hates," Susie told her quietly, aristocratic and firm once again. Zoe didn't want to say what she was thinking: that his hatred or enjoyment of tedious chores was strongly affected by what he was wearing and who was telling him to do it.

But, then again, they lived in the modern era with modern conveniences, and most of the serious domestic labor had been handed off to machines almost a century ago, so the remainder of Richard's maid service that day was limited to moving clothes and blankets from washer to dryer, crinkle-mincing over to the couch to watch moe anime with his girlfriend, then mincing back to collect everything and put it away. Susie did help him, as promised, and it really was easier with two people, and then Susie put his mittens back on him and popped his yellow, unstrapped pacifier into his mouth, then she retrieved the plushie she'd slipped into Caroline's bed the previous night and told him to cuddle it like a good boy.

Richard didn't get the appeal of the anime they were watching - the character motivations made no sense to him and he'd counted three weird kinda-plotholes in the first episode alone - but both Susie and Zoe were clearly into it and he wasn't paying that much attention. He was half-watching it at a 90-degree angle anyway. His head was in his girlfriend's lap, his arm around the plushie, and he was looking up at her breasts, which he could have sworn had gotten slightly bigger in the last couple of weeks. A hormonal thing, it had to be, maybe even part of the reason why she'd wanted his body so much after her father had left, milking him for sperm twice a day. He certainly wasn't complaining. He'd probably get tired of being tied to her bed and used as a living dildo sooner or later, but that was decisively going to be later rather than sooner. ('Oh no. My girlfriend is a dominant, wealthy nymphomaniac. Please. Send help.')

He had found his Heaven on Earth, there on his girlfriend's lap as her passive, obedient baby pet. A quote from a book he'd never actually read came to him: was it better to reign in Hell or serve in Heaven? He had experienced both and decided that he much preferred the latter. He felt a twinge in his bladder and simply let go. Susie noticed and smiled down at him, but she waited until the end of the episode to take him upstairs and change him. He was surprised to see that, instead of a diaper like the one he'd worn, she retrieved the plastic pants and large, puffy underwear made of sewn-together cloth batting.

"A cloth diaper, Your Highness?" he asked, pulling the pacifier from his mouth. 

"Yeah, I can't get any more of those pink ones. My dad still won't let me order anything online, it has to be cash. I wish I had somebody I trust who's got a credit card and I could just pay to do this for us." She was very grateful for Caroline. "But," she continued, fully in princess mode, "cloth is washable and reusable, making it the undergarment of choice for sissy boys whose princesses keep them in diapers."

"Then it's perfect for me, Your Highness," Richard replied with a smile.

She kissed him on the head, took his pacifier, and pushed it back in. "You're such a good boy."

The plastic pants crinkled even more than the diapers had as he minced along beside her, but they were back downstairs before the opening of the next episode had finished, and he laid there, dozing. During the credits of the next episode, Susie started tickling his midsection and sides over his dress, and he didn't realize what she was doing until he was already laughing around his pacifier, wiggling around with his arms up to give her better access.

Susie only pulled the pacifier out for lunch, some whole-wheat sandwiches of some expensive nut spread, and since he was still in his mittens she simply fed it to him instead, bite by bite, before giving him some iced tea to drink.

A few episodes later, she started taking off his heels. "What...?" he mumbled.

"Did you want to wear these home? Or maybe Caroline can pick us up here and you could wear your mermaid suit to the Y?" Susie teased him as she replaced his long socks and heels with his shorter socks and Mary Janes. Oh. Right. It was a swimming day and he hadn't brought any boy clothes with him. He hadn't even brought any boy underwear with him! The mermaid suit very poorly hid his bulge; wearing the long-enough jingly dress home, which she changed him into, over his crinkly diaper was weird by social standards but not get-you-arrested weird for someone his age.

"I so wish you could go out like that," she said, smiling at him, and he nodded in agreement, letting her put his pacifier into his belt pouch with his phone and reluctantly holding out his mittens so she could take them off. Being in public wearing bondage mittens and a pacifier was still somewhere in the red zone, at least in the summertime, and she saw him off with a kiss. Zoe took his hand and walked away, his Mary Janes softly tapping while his plastic pants crinkled and the wind made his bells jingle.

The boys on bicycles were in the same spot they were the first time. This time, the surprise was gone, and they'd obviously been hoping to see them again. Richard knew very well why: he looked like an anime character made flesh. If they were somewhat older and less civilized, he would have been worried about them ambushing him physically on the second go-around; then again, if they had been those things, they probably would have been doing drugs rather than bike tricks on a path behind some houses.

"Can we take pictures with you?" the older of the two asked brazenly. They'd discussed that jingling vision of loveliness in the past couple of days. According to their judgment - and the judgment of one of the boys' fathers - it was no surprise that an pretty girl dressed up like that had a boyfriend, and since she and her sister were walking from the richer part of the neighborhood (and because he could afford to buy her such clothes!), a wealthy one, possibly even someone old enough to buy beer, almost certainly someone old and tough enough to kick both of their asses at once, as that boy's father had warned. The boys had privately agreed that pictures was the best they could do, so pictures was what was they would go for. They intended to tell their online friends that she was each of their girlfriends - in different places, to different people - and use the pictures as proof. They were too infatuated, too enraptured, too amazed to wonder about basic stuff, like why she wasn't talking for herself or why she was walking rather than riding in a car, but they didn't even need to ask her name - they'd just make something up. 

"Yes, but don't touch," Zoe replied firmly, and Richard gave a light, happy smile. Each of the boys posed - absolutely ridiculously, they looked even more silly than Richard did - while the other one took photos. They heeded Zoe's demand and did not touch, so Richard didn't care for the same reasons he didn't care before. Would someone recognize him, in the various Discord channels and online fora such boys were already posting those things to, there on their phones? He'd just enjoyed something that these two could only dream of, and no one was in a position to seriously come after him for it. He could count the number of real social concerns he had on his fingers, but only while he was wearing his mittens.

"You liked that, didn't you?" Zoe asked him after they were out of earshot, the wind-blown jingling mostly drowning out her voice.

"Yeah," he admitted with a smile, wondering if he'd ever run across those pictures anywhere, wiggling his butt a little as he walked to make his dress jingle some more.

They got home well before Caroline was scheduled to pick them up, and Richard stayed in his jingly dress for a while, catching up on some internet crap that he realized he actually didn't care about anymore, instead of putting his boy clothes on right away. When he finally did, they felt a little weird, the sneakers unfamiliar on his feet. He stashed the cloth diaper and plastic pants deep in a box in the back of his closet, packing his Sunshine set in his glittery pink backpack before remembering he had to use his ordinary boy one.

Caroline showed up on time, but she and Leslie were rather quiet until they went to Susie's house, where she was already locking the door behind her, walking to the car in bikini and sneakers, confirming Richard's earlier suspicions- her top fit just a little bit differently than it had before. It was something he paid close attention to, after all. "Now that you're all here, we've got a story for you," Caroline said.

"Why didn't you just put it in the chat?" Zoe asked. Neither of them had been chatting all day, but she'd just figured that she and Leslie had talked a lot already and Caroline had been working.

"We weren't going to ruin your day," Leslie replied.

"Is this a day-ruining story? Can it wait until the day's almost over?" Zoe half-seriously asked.

"I'll just tell you," Caroline said. "Some asshole came tearing through the intersection right in front of us after our light turned green..." There was more she was saying, about the cops coming after him and about how they could find out what happened if they looked it up, but Richard was barely listening. If she had pulled forward just then, the exact thing he'd visualized, her getting T-boned by some lunatic, would have come to pass. It was a weird coincidence, it was just a really weird coincidence, reality did not work that way. "...no wonder this Jedi here told me to drive carefully."

"Yeah, I worry about stuff like that," Richard replied, trying not to give any hints about how weirded out he really was. 'I worried about that exact thing' was something he chose not to say - not because it'd make him sound like a braggart, but because they'd take him seriously, and that really would ruin everyone's day.

"Well, good call. Anyway, end of story," Caroline said.

"That must have been scary," Zoe said to Leslie.

"Not for me, I didn't even see it." Zoe wondered if she would ever have seen it if Caroline had pulled forward, then she suddenly, randomly thought of what Dr. Sinchurch (she didn't even know what the guy looked like) might say if he heard that his singular test subject had just been obliterated by some shithead in a car wreck before he could try his therapies. Zoe just hugged her instead of talking as they drove, and there were no more shitheads speeding through intersections against the light.

"Hey, Mindy, are we going to be able to watch while she's doing this stuff in the hospital?" Susie had overheard bits of them talking about this stuff on Tuesday, even though most of her attention had been on Richard. Leslie had hoped that she wouldn't have to exercise so much once she got the therapies, but it was entirely the other way around; it'd be every day, not twice a week, and Mindy was actually going to pass her other clients off to substitutes while she worked with Leslie full-time.

"Yes, as long as you wear masks and practice social distancing. The physical therapy center's actually a separate building, but it is still considered part of the hospital." Mindy was actually very glad that Leslie had such friends. They were unusual, in ways that went beyond their relationships and Richard's crossdressing. She figured that maybe she was the one with the skewed perspective, as she didn't have any friends who'd stuck by her for the whole three months she'd been in therapy after her mother had skidded off the road on ice, slamming her into a telephone pole. (That was the event that had driven her to become a physical therapist herself.) Still, making such friends in real life, in the middle of a pandemic? How'd the girl do it?

She would have been even more amazed if she had known why Susie had smiled in reply and what she was planning.

They spent the hour in the usual way, Richard chasing Susie around the pool - he had made significant improvements every single time, she wasn't easily outpacing him at all anymore, not even right away - Caroline doing her laps and dives, Zoe staying near Leslie. Mindy intentionally avoided the semi-hidden bathroom in the back, because she knew what she'd see if she got there: the same ritual, three girls and a boy go in with one girl at the entrance, and four girls come out. Richard wondered if someone would eventually catch them other than Mindy and once again just couldn't bring himself to really care. He was wearing his heeled sneakers as Sunshine and he was happy.

"So, where to, sushi?" Caroline asked Susie straight-out. A month ago, that would have been taken as something of a Rule One violation, but that rule was unraveling quickly.

"Does everyone want sushi?" Susie asked, and they all wanted sushi, so sushi it was. They all made a point of ordering stuff they hadn't had before and thought they'd like. Richard loved octopus, and the table was utterly rife with somewhat pornographic tentacle references for a good twenty minutes, beginning with 'I've seen enough hentai...' and continuing from there, stopping only when the last of the tentacles went down his throat.

"All right, guys. I'm out today, going home, doing some reading, taking a massive break from everything and everyone," Caroline told them as they went to the car. "Another fucking work day tomorrow. Twelve goddamn hours. Nothing on Sunday, maybe we can do that thing again," she said seriously, and everyone just nodded in agreement. Caroline had been expecting some level of teasing - 'You want to be treated like a big helpless baby, this is getting to be a regular occurrence' or something along those lines - but it was like she'd said she wanted to watch a movie or something.

"I told you in the chat, your dad better be paying you big for all that work," Zoe said instead. Didn't this violate some child labor law somewhere?

"And I told you, I'm getting percentage commissions," Caroline replied. "My dad raised the price for new customers by fifty percent. Only one guy even blinked, I swear to God, and I already made at least three hundred dollars for eight hours of work today. I know that one of you, won't name names, isn't impressed by all this," (Susie could probably have gotten indignant but just giggled in reply) "but we're actually saving up doing this, because we're going to run out of these kinds of customers before this mess is over." Her father had told her to enjoy the work and the money while it was there, as things were going to get slow in the future. Feast and famine. "It'll only be over with a vaccine, whenever the hell that is and if anybody trusts it." Her friends didn't reply and Caroline stopped talking about it.

Leslie got dropped off first as usual, with Zoe and Richard swapping seats as before. "Now that it's just the four of us, I'd like to plan a surprise for her," Susie said, princess mode fully activated.

"I'm listening," Zoe said guardedly.

"The first day we can see her in the physical therapy center, all four of us should be wearing Team Leslie apparel."

"What, like T-shirts? Isn't that short notice?" Caroline asked.

"I know the exact place to get them from. We can go in Monday morning and get them Monday afternoon."

"This is all going to be bright pink, isn't it," Caroline said. It wasn't really a question. She just knew.

"And with glittery script," Susie replied aristocratically and with a large smile. "Shorts and sneakers as well, don't worry, I'll cover all of it." Caroline suddenly had the idea that they'd prank her by having her be the only one wearing this, and she kicked the idea out of her mind. God, fuck, why did she keep thinking things like that? These people just did not do that kind of shit, and Zoe wouldn't let that happen, this was for Leslie.

"All right, if we're all wearing the same thing, no variations," Caroline felt obligated to say anyway.

"Only for size and shape. I actually want to measure you when we get home." Caroline assented on the premise that nobody at all would be allowed to know what her measurements were - even the shirt studio didn't have to know who would be wearing this - and so, shortly after they reached Susie's house, Zoe and Richard stepped out of the room when Susie went over Caroline's body with tailor's tape. She did Zoe next - same conditions, this was a private thing and Caroline was already on her way home - and Richard enjoyed measuring his girlfriend, wishing that he'd had a reason to do this two weeks ago so he could confirm his suspicions with numbers. Richard's own torso fit Youth XL so completely that he could have been a model for it. The bright pink shorts and sneakers would be less of a problem; the girls could find those at a regular store, and, as Susie jokingly pointed out, it wasn't like they knew of a very specific store that sold girls' clothes in boys' sizes or anything like that.

They started work on the design, including Caroline in a no-Leslie chat that Zoe very firmly told everyone would only last until Wednesday, and meanwhile, Leslie was being chatty again. It was something to be talking with her in one chat room while planning in another one, but this was the good kind of surprise. As Susie promised, the proposed design contained plenty of glitter, and the four of them settled on cursive script with the 'i' in Leslie's name being dotted with a big heart.

Once that was settled, Susie abruptly started kissing Richard out of nowhere, and led him up to the bedroom where one thing led to another very, very quickly, and they had been itching to do that ever since Richard put that tailor's tape around her breasts. Zoe was wholly unsurprised, as they'd been making lovebird eyes at each other all throughout. She was texting her mother in the meanwhile, telling her where they were and what they'd had to eat and when they'd planned on coming home: shortly before dark. Which, so close to the solstice, was rather late indeed.

Heather was annoyed that they were missing yet another family dinner together, but what was she going to tell them? 'You shouldn't have ruined your appetites with that expensive sushi at that fancy restaurant, I was going to cook spam and pea soup for you'? Her own mother might have said something like that, which was why her children hadn't seen their grandmother for a very long time. She tried to put herself in her children's positions, a thing that she had occasionally tried (and very clearly failed) to do and that her own mother had never done, and at least this was all understandable from a simple viewpoint. They wanted to be where the fun was, and it was summer. How could she blame them for that?

At least they told the truth, even if it wasn't the whole truth. Her children had come home shortly before dark as promised, her son in heeled sneakers and the Sunshine outfit she had once foolishly thought Zoe would wear. He even had his boy clothes with him but he'd intentionally chosen the girl outfit anyway, and he smelled of Susie's shampoo again. She almost asked them some serious questions, questions she would have asked if they weren't what they were, but there was no point in haranguing them about anything. She already knew the sorts of topics that they wouldn't talk to her about and that she really had no business prying into anyway. Susie was wealthy, and the boy couldn't possibly catch an STD from a monogamous relationship, and neither could Zoe. Having her (high level, she reminded herself) children so wholly out of her control grated on her a bit, it always did, but every time she rolled it around in her mind - which she did a few times a day - she simply could not see any upside to interfering in their business and a whole hell of a lot of potentially horrible downsides. So, she asked about the sushi instead, and got a lot of information she never thought she'd ever want about the texture and taste of octopodes.

They were tired and headed to bed rather early for teenagers, but that was okay. She would get some time with them tomorrow.


	19. The Nature of Revenge

Knowing he was dreaming the whole time, Richard was a knight in gleaming, light-pink armor with a bright pink rose on his shield and a large pink feather crest on his head. Susie was behind him, sitting elegantly on her white marble throne, the gossamer threads of her gown scarcely hiding her sex.

An army of snake-creatures and one particularly vile slug besieged their castle, swarming into the open gate and trying to transform him and mutilate his mind, magics pouring out in a visible wave. His shield absorbed all of it, and he pointed with his longsword and they simply started dying. The slug burbled out 'not again' before shriveling up as if it were immersed in salt. One snake's brain exploded out its nose, another simply seized and collapsed, others died in even more ways that Richard didn't fully perceive, most of them exceptionally violent. He did use the sword for its normal purpose at some point, but it wasn't clear how or where.

Something else, something that looked vaguely like a tyrannosaurus with longer arms and scimitars for fur, was watching him and chuckling in amusement. 'You have done well, my disciple,' it said, and its voice was an irrevocable delete button.

Richard woke up taking slow, deep breaths, still feeling the rush, the panoply of emotions, some of them indescribable, as the morning sun illuminated his room. He hadn't had a dream anywhere near that immersive, that intense, since elementary school. He turned to his right, wanting to tell Susie what he had dreamt, but of course he was in his own bed and she wasn't with him. He got out of bed slowly, feeling more alive than he ever had in his life. He reached for his phone, considering whether or not to tell them, before deciding that any kind of embarrassment did not remotely matter with the Squad and he told them everything he remembered.

Waiting for replies, he got his morning push-ups and sit-ups in - he really did want to be able to pick Susie up - before throwing on some boxer shorts and going to the bathroom. Crap, locked, Zoe was in there. At least it wasn't the other way around; it hadn't happened recently, but Zoe had tended to get pissed when waiting for her brother.

She was out within a couple of minutes. "Her knight in shining armor," she said with a smile. "One pink boy against all the horrors of the world."

"Yeah, that's me," Richard admitted with a slight smile. "Wait, were you using your phone on the toilet?"

"You know it," Zoe replied, smirking, and Richard laughed in reply before doing bathroom stuff.

His mother was waiting for him as he stepped out, his hair still slightly wet from the shower. "Richard, get ready, we're going out. Boy today, please." She said that last part very politely, expecting him to say no even though he had come home last night as one. But he simply did what she told him, going into the back boxes for the boy clothes his mother had bought him. In his opinion, being too hung up on such things was a path that inexorably led to the infamous 'It's MA'AM!' video, which featured a person he had absolutely no desire to emulate.

He put them on quickly, as his mother and sister were waiting for him, ready to go. "No breakfast?" he asked.

"We're eating out today," Heather said. The last time her children would even want to eat out with her, whenever that had been - and it hadn't been recently - she would have just taken them to the usual place without asking them what they wanted, but something told her that she really shouldn't be doing that anymore. "I'm taking you to McDonald's."

"Really, Mom?" Zoe asked in reply, and that was all the confirmation she needed.

"You used to love it," she lamented.

"No, we tolerated it, because it was all you'd ever take us to," Zoe replied.

"I know that Richard liked it," Heather replied firmly.

"I liked it before I got used to better stuff, yeah," Richard said. "I don't want to go back to that." Heather picked up the subtext like it had handles. Her son was very much telling her that he had no desire to go back to the life he'd had before.

"All right, then," Heather said, slightly exasperated. "Where do you want to go?"

"There's an IHOP down the street from the McDonald's," Zoe said. "It's later now." Heather didn't understand. "You know, you always said you'd take us there later?"

Heather did remember, then, to her shame. Her children had been in elementary school, and she hadn't expected Zoe to remember a thing like that. "I was going to," she said, "when we got more income in the house. Those places are expensive." The income she had visualized was a husband or long-term boyfriend, and Zoe easily read between those lines.

"This time, I'll pay for it," Richard said, trying to end this conversation before it got worse - his mother had spent more money on dumber shit and Zoe was surely going to bring that up if this continued - and Heather briefly turned to look at him before turning her eyes back to the road. "I've still got two-fifty burning a hole in my pocket," he reminded her before she could say anything; he had actually packed all his money in a blue wallet she'd given him a few years ago. Heather almost said that there was no way he could pay for a meal with $2.50 before remembering that he was talking about a hundred times that.

There were mask requirements in the lobby, and social distancing that meant half the booths were closed, and Zoe was very convinced that this place must have had a larger menu at some point, but the stacks of blueberry pancakes (which all three of them wanted) arrived in short order and were delicious, particularly with butter and syrup, and the large shakes were excellent. Heather was surprised at her son. Zoe was hungry; Richard was utterly ravenous. When had he gained such an appetite? He paid for the meal the same way Susie did, by handing three twenties for the nearly $50 meal and leaving the change as a tip, as if caring about such piddling sums was beneath him. (Heather deeply hoped, for both her son's sake and her own, that he could afford to keep behaving that way in the future.)

"Mom, where are you taking us?" Zoe asked as the scenery outside the car windows started to change from suburban sprawl into more rural woodlands.

"We're going to the lake," Heather replied. "Didn't I tell you?"

"No, you didn't," Zoe replied, sighing a bit. Heather sighed as well, frustrated with herself. She knew everything was different, it was just hard to break out of the habits she'd formed over the years, in which she'd simply stopped telling them things so they wouldn't gripe about them. They weren't children anymore, they really, really weren't children anymore, and she had to truly get used to that unless she wanted to end up like her own mother.

The worst part was that they were nothing like she had been, and she thought of ways to tell them that without completely humiliating herself. There probably weren't any. She'd decided to take them out to the lake for both a refreshing walk and for a heart-to-heart. There were things she wanted to confess, before they grew away from her entirely, things she thought she'd never tell them. They might not even like her when she was done telling them, but at least, hopefully, they would understand her. This wasn't the sort of thing she could tell her children if she wanted to retain any sense of authority over them, but she was no longer fooling herself: she'd lost that even before she came home from that wedding.

She waited until they were somewhat down the path that she had walked with Leslie's parents, under the trees, to say what she wanted. "When I was... oh, God. I almost said the words 'when I was your age'." Her children didn't even know why that would be funny. She had never really done the thing of talking about her own childhood, not just because she didn't want to inflict that on them but because she had grown up in a house with two loving parents and they had not. On the other hand, it meant that when she did start talking about the past, they actually listened. "I was awful as a teenager," she said. "Both of you would have hated me, I'm sure. It was all peer pressure and designer clothes and horrible social games." She thought back to the movie Mean Girls, which she had seen in the theater with the other mean girls. They had almost taken notes, flagrantly ignoring whatever moral lesson the movie had to teach; the group had even left the theater before it was fully over. "We would steal things. From other students, from stores, sometimes even from each other. It was a game to us. My mother asked me about it, and every other word out of my mouth was a lie. She didn't want to believe what I was. God, I'm glad I never got arrested." A couple of her friends had, as they'd shoplifted too many large items. "I was even a bitch in World of Warcraft," she said with a small chuckle.

Neither Zoe nor Richard had any words for reply. Neither one of them was all that surprised, Heather noted, as she knew they wouldn't be. She briefly imagined what might have happened had Richard been a boy in her class rather than her son and she'd somehow still found out about his crossdressing. She would have probably tried to blackmail him - or at least manipulate him - and then, more likely than not, evidence of all her various wrongdoings would have mysteriously appeared in the hands of both the principal and her parents within a week.

She swallowed. There was more she wanted to tell them, about how every friend she'd had was just as fake as her - which is why she never caught up with any of them after high school - but instead she went for the big one. "There was... in senior year, we would make fun of this girl, Jessica. We thought maybe she was... Asperger's, we still called it. We would steal her homework, and try to get her in trouble, and she still hung out with us because we're the only ones who would. And one day we were arguing, we were trying to get her to do something, and I... I cut her bra strap." Something about this story seemed familiar to Zoe, but she couldn't place it.

"You cut her bra strap?!" Richard blurted out.

"I know, I don't know what I was thinking, it was just..."

"No, Mom, you don't get it," Richard said, starting to hyperventilate. "It's not what you did, it's what she did!"

"She went to the principal, and after that, it was just punishment after punishment until I graduated high school," Heather replied, but she got the impression that something was wrong, something was very wrong.

"No, that wasn't even - Zoe, do you remember that time Caroline was talking about this stuff? That's the exact thing that happened to that girl she was talking about."

Zoe suddenly remembered what sounded familiar about this. "Holy shit! Ricky, do you remember exactly what she said, what was it?"

"She said she got the other girl's boyfriend or husband hooked on something really addictive, meth, or coke, or something. That something was fucking heroin!" Richard remembered the conversation nearly word for word, as it had dealt with one of his favorite - or perhaps least favorite - subjects. "Mom, seriously, we're not messing with you!" There was no way in hell this could be a coincidence. The similarities were too spot-on.

But Heather needed no more convincing. A memory came to her mind, and she saw it in a totally different light. "I thought they were just having a conversation," she said dully, her eyes unfixed. "Just... just a conversation. I saw her, with him. Talking. Just talking. This was... he was running out of pills..." She stood there like a statue. "And then he was... talking to other people. The ones selling it to him. Oh, God..." She started sobbing, trying to hold herself together. Why hadn't she figured it out sooner? Why had she been so stupid as to believe that Jessica had forgiven her?

Richard, too, was having his own revelations. Before that moment, a substantial part of him had thought of himself as a teenage lord of revenge and slayer of monsters, a boy with some unusual proclivities and lifelong obedience to his beloved princess but still a fundamentally unstoppable modern mage, able to summon the devil and hack society to ruin nearly anyone who needed ruining. Inviolate by anything but random chance, nearly untouchable by lesser mortals.

How was he to know that he had been collateral damage in the use of his own power, long before he had acquired it? That the same dark methods he used had already deprived him of ever knowing his father? He had even complimented the woman in his mind, wanting to emulate her, thinking that she had done a great deed in crushing the person who had hurt her.

But he was the one who had already been crushed, a decade before he had even been able to conceive of such things!

He didn't know whether to cry or laugh, so he sort of did both, making an incoherent noise there on the path beneath the canopy of trees, and his mother and sister turned to look at him. He didn't think his mother would understand, but how did Zoe not get it either? Richard looked around wildly, making sure that no one else was around. "She did the same shit I do!" he blurted out. It was probably a bad thing to say under any circumstances, but it was all too true.

Zoe got it. "It's that thing. Mom, you had that thing done to you. And Dad took the hit." The word 'Dad' always felt weird in Zoe's mouth.

Heather put her hand over her eyes to hide her tears. She understood, but her thoughts were a mess. She remembered that one time that Richard had looked at her just like Jessica had looked at her, that hatred, that fury... she was just glad it was over, it was all in the past, everything was, her husband was never coming back but she would never be the target of such ire again. "Let's just keep going. We have to keep going. There's nothing we can do about this now," she said, her eyes red and watery.

Richard almost objected that there was something he could do, now that he had a target: he could find this 'Jessica' and show her what revenge really looked like, utterly annihilating everything remotely positive in her life without her even knowing who had done it nor why. But Richard was a very smart boy; it had been a decade, after all, and Jessica might have children of her own. And what then? Would they learn such techniques, find out who had a reason to go after their mother, and come back at him with the same thing when he wasn't expecting it? Or would they forgo all the social manipulation bullshit and just shoot him in the head? Besides, ruining this woman's life - or, hell, actually ending it - might very well take days if not weeks of focused concentration, and would Susie be proud of him for doing such a thing? The instincts that had pushed him to smash the others were quiet. There was nothing to be gained, no threat to end, no one to be saved. He would just be getting innocents caught up in it, the same way he had been.

And would he have even wanted a father, considering everything? One parent was bad enough, he didn't need two getting up his ass about things. Surely he would have never had the opportunity to indulge his desires. Maybe he would never have had such desires to begin with. He certainly would never have met Susie. 'Hi, Jessica. Thanks for killing my dad with drugs.'

Morose and conflicted, he continued walking with his mother and sister for an unclear period of time. It was a nice day, and it continued to be a nice day. He abruptly remembered that he hadn't put on sunblock, but the trees were providing a lot of shade and there were enough clouds to blunt the sunlight.

"Think we should tell them?" Zoe asked him quietly.

"Yeah, but... when we get back to somewhere with data."

"Oh, yeah, I wasn't going to tell them one at a time, fuck that."

"Please don't," Heather said, her sneakers crunching a twig as she plodded along. "Your friends already know I'm not a very good person, and they'll think I'm even worse."

"Yeah, you're right, let's just not," Zoe agreed. It felt a lot like kicking her mother when she was down.

"Okay," Richard said. It didn't make him look good, either, and it certainly wasn't news they could use. Some things were just better left buried. What he really wanted to do was go home to Susie's house, do whatever chores his princess needed him to do before she made him insensate to the world for a good, long while, then put on his prettiest dress and his high heels and play Starcraft II like a sped-up Korean until his fingers were ready to be put in mittens again.

Laughter, dark and sardonic and certainly not his own, was echoing inside his head, and it only shut up when he noticed something as the trail took them along the lakeside. "Wait, Mom, hey, this is that beach Susie's dad showed us."

"I don't know what you're talking about," she replied.

"It's a beach we cleaned up, there was a bunch of drug shit here," Zoe said. "Ricky, look, that's where we brushed the sand. We were the last people here."

"Thank fuck," Richard muttered. He had long surpassed his limit of shit to deal with. Having more evidence of those same losers staring him in the face - or, much worse, meeting the losers themselves - would have been far too much for him that day.

"Do either of you want to sit down?" Zoe asked.

"That would be nice. I should have brought towels," Heather dully replied.

"No, here, these rocks aren't too bad." She checked the area around the rocks before sitting down; yup, Susie's group had definitely been the last people there. Her mother plopped down next to her and her brother took a more careful seat.

Zoe was sort of surprised that both of them were so beat up over this. She remembered enough of her father to know that Jessica, whoever she was, obviously hadn't forced heroin into the man's veins. Richard wasn't quite old enough, but Zoe remembered the shouting matches, her mother's desperate crying, her father's equally desperate, ongoing demands for something Zoe couldn't pronounce, which she later realized was some kind of prescription opiate. All Jessica ever needed to do was hook him up with a supplier, a friendly little meet and greet. As revenge went, it was very efficient: maximum long-term pain for minimum personal involvement, a gentle little push to send the precarious boulder down the slope. But her father had remained culpable for his own life, right up until his fatal OD.

"Richard, you don't own revenge," she abruptly told her brother, and he just nodded. "And Mom, this was ten years ago, and besides, she didn't make him use that stuff. He chose that."

"Your father loved you, Zoe," Heather said, still in a daze.

"Not enough, he didn't. If he did, he wouldn't have shoved fucking oxy down his throat before slamming fucking heroin, and you wouldn't've had to bring home random men so we could maybe one day eat at fucking IHOP!" She realized she was halfway screaming. She had noticed how upset her family was but hadn't realized that she was feeling it too, her old, mostly buried anger resurfacing. "Sorry, I just..."

"It's all right, Zoe. I understand." She was crying, and Zoe sat with her in sympathy for a while.

Richard was staring at the lake. There was no breeze, and the sun had peeked out from a cloud and was bearing down. It really was a beautiful sight, but he could barely perceive it. "Let's get back under the trees before we burn," he said abruptly.

"Of course," his mother replied, and the three of them continued walking in general silence all the way around the path and back to the car. They were passed by a couple of joggers going the other way, no one taking notice of anyone else.

All three of them severely had to go to the bathroom, and that was not how Richard had imagined a day with his mother would go: sitting on a vault toilet halfway between outraged and depressed. He got into the front seat again when she opened the doors, but there was nothing to say. Was this always what it was like for people on the receiving end? Was this actually what being traumatized felt like? He wasn't sure. He just really wanted to not be where he was just then, and one look at his sister in the back seat showed that she had similar feelings. His mother was basically dead to the world, and Richard seriously worried whether she was in a fit state to drive them home, but she followed the road rules more exactly than usual, her driving skills entirely on autopilot.

"Mom, can you drop me off at Susie's?" Richard asked within a few minutes of his data connection coming back.

"I'm coming with," Zoe said firmly. She was torn between not wanting her mom to be alone and not wanting to be alone with her mom, but she chose the latter because it was probably better to give the woman some space.

"Of course," Heather said. "Richard, Zoe. Listen to me. This isn't your problem. It's mine. You have nothing to do with this."

"We know," Richard replied, but that didn't stop the emotions at all.

Susie was good at reading emotions through text. The clipped, businesslike way in which Richard had asked if he could come over - like she was going to tell him she was busy! - had made her antsy, and the moment the siblings arrived at her house, their zombielike mother driving away without even saying hello to her, she knew something was seriously up. "What's wrong?" she asked as a greeting, even before they stepped inside. Zoe was getting used to having friends who just knew. Then again, she wasn't hiding it well, and Richard wasn't hiding it at all.

"Mom told us about something that happened to her a long time ago. She doesn't want us to tell anyone about it," Richard said. He'd been thinking of exactly how much he wanted to fudge the truth. He intentionally went evasive, hoping that Susie would understand.

She did, of course, and she didn't even need to think for two seconds before replying. "Then that's her secret to keep, not yours. I know there's nothing you can do about it now."

"How do you know that, though?" Zoe asked.

Susie theatrically rolled her eyes. Wasn't it obvious? Especially with someone like him? "If there was something he could do about it, he'd be doing something about it." Zoe shrugged in defeat and Richard nodded in acceptance. Susie was always a few steps ahead, and with such simple logic. "I'm more concerned with the fact that our little sissy here didn't bring any of the clothes he went home with," she continued, her tone imperious.

"Sorry, Your Highness," Richard said. "I was just thinking I wanted to be dropped off here, I wasn't thinking about that stuff." He wasn't in a good place, so it just hadn't crossed his mind. He expected her to spank him for it.

She wasn't about to, as he was obviously too messed up and it would not have been fun for either of them. This looked even worse than the emo thing that had disturbed her the first time he'd demonstrated his abilities; this looked a lot like depression, and the idea that he could fall into that disturbed her even more. "You've had a bad day, so I'll forgive you this time. Besides, there are some things you still have here." Beckoning him to follow her upstairs, she found one of them in five seconds. It was his mermaid leotard, of course, and he eagerly undressed and let her zip up the back while he was doing up his pigtails. "If it was a long time ago, there's no point in getting upset about it now, so we are going to swim until a smile stays on that face," she told him in a very comforting, very wonderful blend of imperious and motherly, as if he were a small child, and just hearing that tone eased his mood. If Heather would have treated him that way, he would have balked at once; Susie could treat him like that for the rest of his life and he would never complain.

"We didn't bring sunblock, either," Zoe said from outside the room.

"It's all right, I've got some of that." The SPF was slightly lower, but Susie knew that didn't matter much, and the combination of fins and leotard covered him neck to toe anyway. "I've also got some swimwear that'll fit you, if you want to join us." Susie hadn't cleaned out her closet in a while, and Zoe was just slightly smaller than her.

"You know what, that'd be awesome, thanks." It took a little bit, but Susie found what she was looking for, and before long, the three of them were by the pool, Susie in her bikini, Zoe in one of Susie's older one-pieces, and Richard in full mermaid mode.

His mood improved dramatically even before his tailfin touched the water. Susie was right, and so was his big sister. He didn't own the concept of revenge. This was something that had happened a long time ago. His father had still been the cause of his own destruction, and Richard would not destroy the innocent nor himself. He would destroy only the people who needed destroying, and he would help the people who needed helping. And, at that moment, the person who really needed helping was him, and the best way he could help himself at that moment was to get a good workout and enjoy his time as a sweet little mermaid-in-training, swimming back and forth in his cute little leotard and fins while his big sister and dominant girlfriend watched over him.

"I know you said until a smile stays on my face, but can we keep swimming?" he asked Susie, five minutes later, with a wide grin.

"Of course, sweetie. We've got all day," she said, still treating him like a little child even though she planned on doing very grown-up things with him later. She kissed him on the nose, a wide smile on her own face. She'd caught up on most of the stuff she'd planned to do; the rest of it could wait. He and her long-term plan for him were more important, and it was a nice day for a swim anyway.

Besides, she absolutely loved seeing the beatific smile on his face and the knowledge that she had put it there, almost entirely by just existing. She luxuriated in the pure power, the pure dominance, she had over him, knowing that only a tiny fraction of the population would ever enjoy what she was feeling right then and there, and she fully intended to make sure that she would never lose this feeling, never lose him. This was on top of the fact that she wasn't dominating some loser simp, she thought to herself in pure blissful supremacy. As he had such scary power and she owned him so completely, what did that make her?

His sister was simply good company. It was easy to forget - for all of them - that Susie had known Zoe longer than she'd known her boyfriend. 

Hours passed, the three of them in the pool together, the girls chatting about semi-normal teenager stuff while they all swam back and forth, until Susie called a halt to it because it was time to eat. Richard snapped out of his self-imposed daze. He hadn't entirely been unaware of the time - his arms and mermaid-tailed legs hurt a little bit from all the exercise - but he was intentionally pushing deeper thoughts aside. His analytical mind was for Starcraft, hacking, and destruction. He had no need of it when he was swimming with his princess.

She pulled off his mermaid tail and hand fins but left the swimsuit on. She led him by the hand back into the house, his sister following with a bit of wry amusement, and went straight for the short baby dress. "Put this on, over the swimsuit. You didn't bring anything else, so this is what you will be wearing when you cook," she told him. He looked pretty silly after she zipped up the back - the swimsuit arms didn't match the pink dress at all, and the lower part only covered the inside of his butt cheeks. The girls giggled at the sight. "Now go on, Ricky," Susie instructed him before going to put on her own dress. "Cook us something good."

"Yes, Your Highness," he replied automatically, but being told to cook an undefined dish, by himself, was much more startling than just being put in a dress over a swimsuit. He felt like he was being given a surprise final exam, an essay question rather than multiple choice. Just when he thought he'd be able to put away his analytical mind for a while, Susie had told him to bring it back out.

Right, he hadn't memorized any recipes and there was no way she had expected him to. He knew the basic principles, he'd just work off those, but he didn't even know what ingredients he had to work with. Okay, rice, he knew she had plenty of that, and spices were always available. Meats, veggies? Her fridge had been freshly stocked; her aunt must have been by recently. Right, he was actually hungry just then and she probably didn't want to wait either, so oven-based dishes were out. Oh, there was a very tempting-looking cut of pork in the front, that one looked like it had been intentionally put there for his use, he could fry that up the same way she'd shown him how to stir-fry beef. Always get the rice started first, then start heating up just enough oil - hopefully it wouldn't be too greasy - before getting out the cutting board and chopping the meat, spring onions, and multicolored peppers. He didn't feel like he knew quite what he was doing, and he was probably hesitating way too much, at least his sister was making the tea and setting the table. He had no idea what it was he was making or if it even had a name, and he wracked his brain trying to remember. Wait, had they even cooked pork before? Was there a defined dish for that?

It was only about fifteen minutes later, as he started sprinkling star anise and other spices on their nearly finished plates, that he thought of her father and abruptly realized that of course there wasn't any traditional Persian recipe for pork, at least there hadn't been one for many centuries, her heritage was from an Islamic country!

Sighing to himself for being stupid, he served his princess and sister at the same time before returning for his own plate, knowing that Susie's eyes were on his posterior and probably had been several times already. He gave his mostly-exposed butt a little shake and she giggled. (What she found even more amusing was that he was barefoot and in the kitchen, but she had multiple reasons not to say that out loud.)

His concerns over the quality of the food were mostly allayed by the fact that both of them were eagerly eating it even before he sat down, the cushion feeling weird on his skin. At least he didn't completely fail the test. It smelled right to his nose and tasted pretty good to his mouth. He was worried that they weren't saying anything - he had actually been expecting them to give him a detailed review and a letter grade - but the fact that they were too busy eating to talk was probably the highest praise he could have gotten.

"Ricky," Susie instead asked with a smile (and a single grain of rice) on her lips, "what were you so worried about?" 

"Disappointing you, Your Highness," he answered immediately, right in front of his sister. He'd already screwed up that day by forgetting his girl clothes and diaper. Messing up on an expressly given task would have been awful, especially after the day he'd had.

"And that's a very good thing for you to worry about," she said aristocratically before sipping her tea, smiling on every level. He'd performed exactly as she'd expected. She'd somewhat worried that he was going to overextend himself in trying to make her happy, trying to prepare something too fancy that he didn't actually know how to cook, but that kind of thing wasn't in his nature.

What was in his nature was being a good little boy for the one he loved, so once the three of them were done eating, she theatrically retrieved her favorite spatula and took him by the hand again, and Zoe decided to get a head start on the hot tub before it was occupied. Susie thought of giving him a reason, that she was still upset with him for forgetting his pretty clothes, but there was no need for that. It was simply time for his spanking. She pulled upwards on the crotch of his mermaid suit, giving him a very solid wedgie, before she started whapping with precise strokes on each cheek. He couldn't even pretend not to be enjoying it, eagerly wiggling his butt to give her better shots, and she felt his growing erection right through her clothes.

A couple of minutes later, those clothes were on the floor of Susie's bedroom, and Richard could well and truly set aside his mind once more. He was having sex with her the way she wanted, but the fact that he was thrusting in and out of her tight, sopping wet vagina was less important than the feel of her body, the smell of her, their arms wrapped around each other, his burning desire to be close to his princess and stay that way for as long as he could. He needed her, in every sense of the word. He needed her to give him commands, to make him her obedient little sissy boyfriend, to keep him by her side forever.

But what he really needed just then, what they both needed when they were done, was a hot bath to wash away all the combined sweat and oils (Richard had to go after his own face with a washrag pretty heavily), and Zoe had timed it well, finishing up just a minute before they went in. She was sitting on the couch, napping with anime ready to start playing, when they walked down the stairs, and she was totally unsurprised to see him mostly babified, Susie leading him downstairs with his reins, his clashing swimsuit and pink dress, kneepads, mittens, booties, and pacifier all on. She'd left the headphones off, and it quickly became clear why: at low points in the show, Susie would say gentle, sometimes nonsensical things to him, treating him just like an actual little baby, a role he enjoyed playing very much. It was all right; Zoe had Leslie to talk to, as the girl had just finished an RPG and was gushing over it in their Discord chat.

A few episodes later, Zoe got a message that was decisively not the Discord sound, and she sighed. "Mom wants us back home for dinner," Zoe lamented. "We did say Saturday, so..."

"It's fine," Susie replied. "C'mon, Ricky, let's get you ready," she said, still treating him like a little kid. She let him out of his baby stuff while giving him explicit and detailed commands for how and when to arrive at her house tomorrow morning, politely asking Zoe to help him, to which she readily agreed. The TV was bigger at Susie's place, she carried her phone everywhere, and she would much rather be chatting in person with Susie - or, better yet, Leslie - than sitting at home on her computer.

Their mother picked them up, pleased to know that the two of them were in much better spirits, certainly much better than she was - and she brought them home to eat the dinner she'd already cooked. It was not spam fried rice. Instead, she'd brought home Cornish game hens, and to the teens' complete surprise, their mother actually knew what she was doing with them, alongside corn and cranberry sauce. Thanksgiving come early. There was probably a subtext there, but nobody said it out loud.

Richard scarfed it all down, not understanding what was driving his hunger, just knowing that his body needed food. Zoe, still feeling a bit full from her earlier meal, promised to eat everything on her plate later, a promise she kept later that night. Richard played two games of 1v1 Starcraft that night, losing the first - the other guy might as well have been AlphaStar - and winning the second in a long slog of attrition. He went to bed naked and closed his eyes, using his imagination to force himself back into the castle where he had been last night, once more seeing the jagged teeth of the thing that called him its disciple.

"Why'd you kill my dad?" he asked Revenge.

"Because it was my job," Revenge replied, and the thing sounded like severed heads rolling down a giant cheesegrater. "What sort of answer did you expect? I can't be tamed, only unleashed. If you don't want to see me again, don't give anyone else a reason to choose me," - Richard had a sudden feeling like he was holding a pokeball - "and hope that no one else makes you pull me out of the deck."

But these were things that Richard already knew, and he was really just talking to himself anyway, and with that thought, he fell asleep for real.


	20. Looking Forward

After his morning workout - he did a few more than usual - and morning bathroom rituals, Richard skipped along the path in his Mary Janes, his little bells jingling and his diaper rustling, his slightly amused big sister jogging to keep up. Susie had told him to skip the whole way, but he might have done it anyway, his cute little clip-on earrings fluttering along with his growing pigtails and his bracelets shining in the early morning sunlight.

It was, in fact, the early morning. That was the thing with summers in the Greater Area: early morning around the solstice was, in fact, quite early, early enough that Heather was still deeply asleep (and her children very well knew that she had a hard time getting to sleep last night; Zoe had left her a note) and pretty much everyone else was as well on a Sunday morning, making it the perfect time, in Susie's words, for a cutie like Richard to skip home to his princess. The bells, to Zoe's ears, sounded like they might wake up the whole neighborhood, but that was just an illusion because they were the only things other than birds making noise that morning. Well, that and his crinkly plastic pants, but those could scarcely be heard while he jingled along.

Susie wasn't about to admit that she had waited by the window, enjoying the show as she peered out through the expensive curtains. That was undignified, unbecoming of a princess. Instead, she simply opened the door at the right time with a big smile and her high-class dress, which was definitely less frilly and certainly not as noisy as Richard's outfit. "Good morning, Ricky! Good morning, Zoe!" she greeted them, her tone of voice showing that she was fully immersed in her role.

"Good morning, Your Highness!" Richard replied with a wide smile and a deep curtsey. Susie didn't even need to ask if he'd done exactly what she told him. He was slightly out of breath - skipping for a mile uphill was a workout - and his pink, glittery backpack was full.

"Did you like skipping here?" she asked instead as the siblings walked through the door.

"Yes I did!" Richard replied, a big smile still on his face.

"Well, I'm glad to hear that. From now on, when it isn't a bad idea, that's how you'll go along while you're outside," she told him, having carefully thought about the wording beforehand. Zoe's mouth opened a little bit, growing into an approbative, almost envious smile as she realized just how much power the girl could exercise on a whim. Just like that, her brother's default mode of travel, circumstances permitting, had changed from walking or jogging into sweet, little girlish skipping.

"Yes, Your Highness," Richard replied with a big smile, and Susie gave him a deep kiss. "Thanks for bringing him here so early," she told Zoe after breaking it off.

"Just as long as I can crash," Zoe said, taking off her own backpack. As she told Richard, she had her own 'girl problems', and, although they were nothing like Caroline's, she wasn't feeling so great. She just wanted to curl up in the rainbow pajamas she'd brought.

"Go ahead," Susie replied, and Zoe made a beeline for the stairs.

"I'm so glad she takes such good care of you," Susie told Richard once his big sister had closed a bedroom door behind her. Susie knew the fastest way to his heart and decided to get there. "Isn't that what you need? Someone to take care of you? Look after you, make sure you don't get into trouble?" she asked, reaching around and patting him on his thick diaper.

"Yes, Your Highness," Richard responded, his emotions ferociously tickled and his penis stiffening rapidly.

"And that's what you'll always need," she told him firmly. "No matter how tall you get, no matter what you become, you'll always need a big girl to take care of you. Isn't that right?"

"Yes, Your Highness," Richard said yet again. She was absolutely right, and they both already knew it - she just wanted to hear him say it, to make him remind himself of it. He needed this, deeply. He didn't know quite what it was, but something within him really, really needed to belong to a girl, to be coddled and submissive, and he could not possibly have asked for anyone better to completely fall in love with.

"Then, do you have any requests for me?"

"Please take care of me, Your Highness!" he desperately replied, his voice cracking a bit.

Seeing him this way, so needy and emotionally helpless, stirred something just as powerful within her. "Come along, little boy," she told him, taking him by the hand. "Your princess will take care of you."

As promised, she took care of him. There was even less foreplay this time around. She simply kissed him, repeatedly, taking his dress and diaper cover off and snapping out his diaper pins, and then she stroked his solid dick and inserted it inside her. She was wet, of course, just saying those things to him had moistened her, and so she rode him, bouncing up and down, reminding him who was boss as his breathing grew even more ragged and needy. She was starting to get a very good feel for his reactions, for the way his body worked, and so she edged him over and over again, teasing him, coming a few times herself but delaying his release until she decided he should have one -

There was a knock downstairs.

Oh no, who could... it better not be her aunt, it couldn't possibly be her aunt... oh wait, of course Caroline was coming, she didn't think she'd been riding him for that long - "Zoe! Get the door!" she desperately yelled, and she heard the other bedroom door open, and she went back to business. The surprise and need to finish up had brought him much closer, she could tell, and so she immediately rode him to orgasm and he filled her up yet again. In the quiet of afterwards, her collapsing onto his body, his arms around her, she heard Zoe exchanging morning pleasantries with Caroline and Leslie. Disaster averted.

She put on her nightgown and helped Richard back into his diaper for the brief trip to the tub. That ritual was not going to change no matter how many of her friends were in the house - she absolutely hated sticky sweat. She smiled as she greeted the downstairs girls; it was nice not having to explain where she was going, as they all already knew.

"Mind if I join you?" Caroline asked. She was carrying a small bag and wearing loose pajamas - she'd driven Leslie there in them on purpose - and she didn't sound as mentally exhausted as she had the last time she'd come over, although she was obviously looking to relax. Beat, Richard figured was the right word. She was just utterly and completely beat.

"Sure," Susie responded reflexively.

"I want to," Leslie spoke up, and this time, Zoe was the odd one out. Didn't they know what the two of them had just been doing? Were they actually okay with sharing a hot tub with that? Hell with it, she wasn't in a good state herself and felt like she could use a long soak anyway, she'd just make sure there was plenty of bubbly antibacterial soap and that the water was circulating. Leslie would need help and Caroline really didn't look like she was up for more than just carrying her, braces and all, up the stairs.

"All right, you've got all of us," Zoe said, and it wasn't that long before Susie did have all of them naked in the tub together once they'd managed to get Leslie's braces off. She gave Caroline a knowing look and a nod, expecting what she might ask for.

"Not doing the baby stuff today, guys," Caroline said in reply to the unspoken question, scrubbing herself under the water. "I'm too tired for even that. And I'm not driving anyone anywhere else today either, I'm sorry." There were two reasons why she'd come at all. The first, of course, was to bring Leslie. The second was that she was guaranteed privacy at Susie's house if she wanted it. She'd even told her father that she was turning her phone's ringer completely off.

"No work today?" Susie asked.

"Yeah, about that. Dad actually wanted to keep it going today, but pretty much everyone else in the shop just said no, we're not doing this on Sunday. We're talking about military guys who are getting paid mid-six figures if you averaged it out, and, I swear to God, they almost unionized right in front of him. Some of these guys had been working seventy, eighty-hour weeks already. We are done until Monday, and I'm not getting up at bullshit-thirty this time, either," she told Leslie.

"Your parents are okay with you sleeping over again?" Zoe asked as she scrubbed Leslie's body.

"Yeah, because it's the last time I'll be able to do it for a while," Leslie replied. "There's going to be some immune system stuff, so I'm going into isolation for a week. They sent me pictures. There's an actual decontamination airlock, it's almost like a zombie movie." Her parents were just glad that Dr. Sinchurch's organization was paying for it all. Their insurance wasn't even involved. Willa and her husband had insisted that Leslie not be surprised by the environment she'd be going into, but Leslie just wanted to make sure that she'd be able to bring her phone and that it would continue to work. Medical stuff like that didn't scare her, not anymore, but the idea of being separated from her friends for that long absolutely terrified her. She could never explain just how much she was glad that Zoe's mom wouldn't try to interfere with their relationship anymore. "I'll try not to chat too much."

"Leslie, you chat as much as you want," Zoe replied firmly. "What else were you going to do? Read, play whatever works on your phone?" She didn't even want to imagine what life would have been like in the bad old days before bedridden girls had phones and isolation wards were expected to have Wi-Fi connections. She put her hand over her smaller girlfriend's. "Talk to me, at least."

"Okay," Leslie agreed. But there wasn't a lot of talking, not that morning. Caroline was too beat, Zoe was too under the weather, Susie was too busy scrubbing Richard's hair, and Leslie was too worried about things that she knew were really fucking stupid to worry about. She had briefly worried about what might happen if the treatment actually worked and she didn't need to be taken care of anymore, and her friends abandoned her because of it, and she mentally punished herself for even thinking that. More of her issues, she knew. She really did not like being a person with issues. She almost asked if they'd had breakfast already but of course they didn't do that, either. "Is anyone else hungry?" she asked instead, like she figured a normal person would do.

"Yes," Susie replied, and glanced at Richard, who immediately took the hint and stepped out of the tub to start drying himself off. Susie smiled. In her view, actually needing to give him commands was a lesser form of dominance. Her father had occasionally chided her mother with 'Honey, I'm not a mind reader.' But Richard was good at recognizing patterns, and Susie wanted to get him to the point that he could and would anticipate what she wanted without her even needing to tell him a thing.

Richard, in his crinkly diaper, jingly dress and socks, yellow pacifier and other accessories, and the pink heels he'd brought, was happy for the chance to make breakfast himself. It meant that he got to determine portion sizes, and while he knew how much the girls usually ate, he was absolutely famished. He didn't understand what was driving his hunger for meat and eggs - he couldn't have possibly been excreting that much protein in his sperm! He went for a full complete breakfast, having plenty of experience with buttering pancakes - fortunately, Susie had a box of premade mix - and very happy for the fact that she had large pans to use. By the time the girls started walking downstairs (Caroline was giving Leslie a piggy-back ride, and Zoe was making sure she didn't fall off), the teakettle had just gone off and he was piling eggs onto plates.

"Somebody else want to set the table?" Zoe asked. She really wasn't feeling it.

"I've got it," Caroline said. Moving a few utensils and pouring a few drinks was nothing compared to the bullcrap she'd had to do yesterday. Fortunately, the customers had been less screamy than on Friday, and there had been fewer of them. It was just the fat backlog she'd had to contend with.

Susie noticed the apologetic look on Richard's face. Whatever for? The food was cooked better than his usual pretty good standard. Oh, he'd given everyone else their usual portions but piled his own plate high. Food was not a problem, would never be a problem for her; if he really could eat it all - and from the way he was stuffing himself, he definitely could! - he was welcome to it. It was Caroline she was worried about.

"Caroline, if you want to talk about yesterday..." Susie offered.

"I don't want to talk about yesterday," Caroline replied evenly. "Nothing weird or bad happened, I just... don't want to talk about yesterday." It was all just work, work, work. "Actually, can I use those headphones of yours? I just want to go die in a bed for hours."

"Room to the left of ours," Susie replied, gesturing, and no one at all missed the 'ours'. Caroline finished everything on her plate before heading upstairs, and to her complete lack of surprise, the baby stuff - except for the diaper cover, which was on Richard - was laid out on that bed. As she Bluetooth-paired the headphones and her phone, she kept looking at the mittens, booties, and pacifier, the temptation getting to her. Ah, hell with it. When was the next time she was going to be able to do this? She got her playlist started, tied the booties with bowties, buckled the pacifier around her head, then used her elbows and knees to not-really-tie the mittens' ribbons. (The idea that she might be able to tie a knot she couldn't get out of gave her a strange thrill, but she wasn't about to actually do that.) She cuddled the plushie she'd had the last time, closed her eyes, and listened to a very slow, very easy playlist.

Zoe, having slowly picked at her food, pushed away her half-eaten plate. "I'm really sorry, this is actually great food but I'm just not hungry right now," she explained. "Don't even bother putting it in the fridge. Leslie, you wanna go upstairs?" She agreed immediately. "Ricky, can you help?"

"Yeah, sure," he said, pulling off his heels for safety, and the two of them carried Leslie up the stairs and into the other bedroom. Richard figured that Zoe must have been bearing most of the weight, as carrying Leslie's upper body was a lot easier than he thought it would be. He walked back down to put his heels back on and finish his food. "Not what you expected them to be doing today?" he asked his princess with a slight smile.

"It's all right. Wait here like a good boy and I'll come back with a surprise," she said with a kiss and a smile, and he scarfed down the rest of his food - along with the stuff Zoe didn't finish - in anticipation. "Well, that's definitely a surprise," Susie said a couple of minutes later, holding a few lengths of ribbon, still smiling. "Caroline couldn't resist the temptation, so none of that stuff for you today," she explained, wishing that she had multiple sets of it. Caroline, eyes closed and headphones on, hadn't even noticed her enter the room. "Come along, onto the couch. Wrists crossed behind your back," she told him, and he didn't hesitate for a moment. A few loops and a bow later, and he was nicely, cutely helpless. "Ankles crossed," she told him, and they were swiftly wrapped the same way, his bells left exposed to jingle. He could have untied it - he probably could have even wriggled out of it - but that was the last thing he ever wanted to do. "Bend your knees, all the way," she told him, and he knew exactly what she was going to do before she neatly tied his wrists and ankles together, finishing by popping his yellow pacifier into his mouth. The sissified, hogtied boy blissfully rested his head on his princess's lap, helpless and content.

She picked out Bollywood again, and Richard judged that Bahubali and its sequel were both epic and insane in equal measure. He'd drank a lot of liquid and had to go to the bathroom, but of course he was wearing his bathroom and the soft cloth diapers soaked it all up. His princess would untie and change him when she wanted to.

Caroline heard a warning beep in her ears and groggily batted at her headphones. What the hell? Oh, right, must be low battery. She realized that she'd been wrong; she could definitely sleep with the pacifier in. And her keys, wallet, and phone in her pajama pants, too. She looked up at the time - almost 5, seriously? - and saw a note in Susie's impeccable handwriting: 'Lunch is in the fridge.' She'd put on the baby stuff - slept in it, even - after saying she didn't want it, and all they did was leave her an unrelated note. Fuck, she did not deserve friends like those. She wiggled one of the mittens off, took the rest off, and plugged the beeping headphones into the charger before heading to the bathroom and going downstairs to reheat lunch, and she'd never thought she'd develop such a taste for rice. But where was everyone? Not upstairs, not in the basement... Oh, right. Pool. It was a hot afternoon, and all four of them were in there, Zoe keeping careful tabs on Leslie while Susie taught Richard, in his mermaid leotard but not the fins, proper swimming form.

"Sorry I slept all day," Caroline greeted them with after changing into her swimsuit.

"It's fine, I only got going a couple of hours ago," Zoe replied. She was very glad that she, like her mother, only really suffered for half a day or so every month. "You looked like you needed it."

"Did I ever," Caroline replied, although she figured that she'd completely screwed up her sleep rhythm. She stepped into the surprisingly warm water, stared up at the cloudless sky - she was glad she'd brought sunblock, too - and practiced her floating, imagining what it'd be like to write a 'What I did on my summer vacation' paper. Yeah, there wouldn't be a lot of details she'd want to share. Actually, did she even want to do her senior year? There didn't seem like a lot of point, not for where she was headed, and she seriously just did not want to go back to that, which she considered to have all of the work as her actual job but none of the pay. She'd have to check local laws, but she figured she could get her GED before she even turned 18, and she knew for a fact that she could get into a good trade school - which literally everyone at her job was telling her to do - even without one. She'd have to talk about it with her dad, who she knew would be receptive to the idea. Her mom might give her some small amount of grief for it, but they'd mutually given up on each other years ago even though they still lived in the same house. Caroline figured that if she wanted someone to patronize her and treat her like a child who couldn't make decisions for herself, she'd put the baby stuff back on and ask Richard and Susie to do it instead.

Dinner went the same way as breakfast - with Zoe actually eating more this time - and Caroline figured that lunch probably went the same way as well. She saw Zoe texting her mother about where she and Richard were and what they were doing, but it was obviously a formality. Caroline stayed up late with Zoe and Leslie, watching some extremely dumb Japanese monster movie, but of course Susie and Richard were in bed after, well, more of what they usually did. Caroline was still a virgin - her parents, in rare agreement, had made it very clear that she'd only have her first time once, so it better be with the right guy - and spending so much time in a house with a couple that was doing it on the regular was feeling weird in an extra-weird way. Susie had found her Mr. Right, she reminded herself, and so would she.

She actually did get most of a good night's sleep, and there weren't any crazy people nearly crashing into her car, nor was there any rushing that morning. Richard obediently skipped home with his big sister shortly after Caroline had driven away with Leslie. His mother was headed off to work just as the siblings arrived, and he suddenly realized that this was the first time that she'd seen him in his jingly dress, but she didn't do anything other than politely greet the two of them and ask them how their day went and how Leslie was doing. He was still glad Susie had told him to put the diaper in the wash and wear regular underwear home.

Even the best of friends and most dedicated of lovers need time apart, and Richard evenly spent his Monday between working out with a backpack full of heavy stuff (bicep curls, push-ups with it on, even some situps holding it on front of him), teaching himself hacking, and some Starcraft, a couple of times with his big sister. Zoe spent most of the day chatting with Leslie, though, because the girl was obviously getting more nervous by the day and it was starting to rub off. Susie whiled away most of the day playing, reading, planning, thinking, and fantasizing - after remembering to talk to that shirt company, of course.

Tuesday was an important day for the group, but it was easy to have a plan go off exactly as planned when the plan was just to buy clothes in the morning. Shirt shop - done, and all Susie had to do was walk in with a handful of cash like she usually did. (They'd actually finished the order on Monday.) Pants, mall for the girls and Spectral for Richard, just as Susie had envisioned. Leslie didn't even ask why all of them had arrived to pick her up instead of just Caroline (her excuse would have been that she simply forgot where she was going at first and just decided to do things the other way around, which was stupid enough to be believable), and, as Richard had told the others, the best way of avoiding giving Leslie any hints that something else was going on was to remember that this plan of theirs was not that big of a deal. Just a little surprise, not really important. They got the stuff and stashed it in a black plastic bag in Caroline's trunk, so the plan was done. Not worth thinking about.

Leslie's swimming session was surprisingly usual. She did talk with Mindy about what to expect during and after the treatment, but to Caroline's ears, it sounded more like a recap than a real conversation and the focus was on keeping things normal. Richard was getting good, she noticed, as he put Susie's lessons to good use and kept up with her even from the start. After they were done, a full hour as normal, Caroline dropped Zoe and Richard off with Susie first and then took Leslie straight home because she had to go back to work. She had some idea of what the couple would be doing for a lot of that afternoon. A few weeks ago, she could not have possibly envisioned a world in which 'Yup, she's probably turning him into her diaper dependent sissy again' was even a valid thought, but there it was. She was probably turning him into her diaper dependent sissy again. Buy some clothes, go for a swim, and then turn her boyfriend into a helpless baby and feed him through the pacifier strapped to his mouth while his sister helps out. Routine, everyday normality.

And then the fated Wednesday finally occurred.


	21. Fixing What Can Be Fixed

Both of Leslie's parents had taken the day off, of course, but she was just as confused as they were as to why the rest of the Squad wanted to meet her on the way into the hospital that morning. It was a touching gesture, but it would be a very brief meeting and didn't Caroline have work to do? It just felt very weird, although Susie shelling out for an hour's worth of paid parking for a five-minute visit wasn't particularly unusual for her. Leslie humored them, of course, telling them where she'd be and which one of the hospital complex's multiple entrances she was using.

Everything was answered the instant she saw them waiting for her outside the door.

Their matching pink sneakers, shorts, and masks (it was a hospital after all) were one thing, and of course Richard was wearing pink bands on his pigtails because he was like that, but the glittery script on all of their matching shirts actually had the words 'Team Leslie' with a heart in the 'i' and everything, and while Robert and Willa both thanked her friends for such an incredible show of support, Leslie herself was simply, completely dumbstruck, her mouth hanging open as Zoe explained that they were going to do this for the first day of physical therapy but had decided to do it before she went into isolation.

No one, in her entire life, had ever given her a pleasant surprise. Her birth parents pretty much never gave her anything pleasant, and her real parents never surprised her, and she had no idea whatsoever how to react. "Wowwww, thanks so much, guys!" she said eventually, because she logically determined that she had to say something like that, but just the idea of all four of them taking the time and effort to work together to actually prepare something like that, to actually put that stuff on, to actually do something like that for her because they truly wanted to do it - even Caroline, wearing glittery pink for her - put her into something like emotional shock.

There were well-wishings, and good-lucks, and everything else to expect from such a meeting, but Leslie wasn't entirely receiving them. She and Dr. Sinchurch exchanged pleasantries as her parents ritually handed her off - there was very little paperwork, they'd already signed everything months ago - but she was just going through the motions. (She did not need to worry. Everyone, her doctor, her parents, her friends, was doing everything for her.)

There were tests, of course, plenty of those, strength and breathing and blood, and there was another small jab when the nurse injected the immunosuppressants that would help the gene therapies later that day take hold, and while those were working, the researcher ran her through some more tests, not expecting her to be so calm about the whole thing. The nurse he was working with that day had been prepared to offer her Valium, but both of the adults were surprised that she didn't even need it. (Why would she? All her friends had gotten dressed up, in specialized, personalized outfits, just to cheer her on.)

Then again, Dr. Sinchurch mused, Leslie was an oddity, although of course he would never say something like that. Being a female with Duchenne was rare enough, and then there had been that aborted business with her birth parents; mere days after he was told that they'd be a problem, he was told that they wouldn't be a problem anymore. He had been prepared to testify, to speak up for who he was and what he was doing, and then he hadn't needed to. He knew he could never ask what had really happened with that, it seemed too pat to be a coincidence, but this was not the first time in his life that professional ethics prohibited him from learning what he would like to know.

They wheeled her to the isolation room, where they put privacy shields up over the airlock and gently stripped and disinfected her right there. Of course, the room was meant to look as un-jail-like as possible, but it still felt a little like one, and it wasn't long before her regular doctor, Dr. Bonesnapp (he was used to the reactions to his name), led a team of nurses that went about the business of injecting stem cell colonies into every single one of her major muscle groups and even some of the minor ones. That actually hurt, a half hour's worth of hurt inflicted by people wearing full-body hazmat suits, even with the lidocaine she was getting. (But what did she care? Richard had spent a whole day crushing her birth parents so that this could happen. Her friends had gone very, very far out of their way just to support her for a moment. A tear had formed in her eye, and the nurse had thought it was because of pain. It wasn't. It was because Team Leslie was real.)

She was actually surprised when they stopped after doing only a quarter of what they were supposed to, before they explained that lidocaine toxicity was a real thing and that constant doses of local anaesthetic might cause systemic damage; she was going to be there for a week anyway, so it was better to play it safe. They didn't even have to tell her that they didn't want to put her under because her breathing was weak as it was. They put some kids' hospital pajamas on her and left with strict instructions to take it easy, a thing she had already been doing even with the oversized needle repeatedly piercing deep into her flesh, and a list of extremely protein-rich meals she'd be eating along with her standard regimen of pills. Hospital food was something with which she was very familiar, and having what was basically pureed Powerbars in the mix was no surprise. Of course, her phone was right there; over the course of the day, they'd only took it out of her arm's reach at a few times, once to disinfect it with an alcohol-based electronics cleanser. Her mother had even told her in advance, straight-up and without any hint of mockery, that pediatric practice had learned to treat a teenager's phone as a 'security object' that was not to be separated from her.

[2:04 PM] Leslie: Done for now.  
[2:05 PM] Zoe: How was it?!  
[2:05 PM] Susie: There she is!  
[2:06 PM] Leslie: Haven't even gotten the real gene stuff yet. Bunch of "baseline" tests and stem cell injections. Kinda tired, might nap.  
[2:06 PM] Zoe: If it's OK for you to sleep, just sleep.  
[2:09 PM] Zoe: If you need to keep typing that long, you can just tell us later. It's OK, seriously.  
[2:10 PM] Richard: Spelling the medical terms Leslie? :slight_smile:  
[2:10 PM] Leslie: Thank you all so much for this morning. I couldn't even say it right. Something like you guys wearing that uniform had never happened to me ***EVER***. Thank you all, seriously I'm so grateful for everything, especially you Ricky because holy shit if it weren't for you, this wouldn't even be happening now. Zoe I love you so much :heart:  
[2:10 PM] Zoe: I love you too, Leslie. :heart:  
[2:11 PM] Susie: Now *Ricky* doesn't know what to say :sticking_out_tongue:  
[2:12 PM] Richard: You're welcome. :smile:  
[2:12 PM] Caroline: i know what to say, really really hope this actually works  
[2:12 PM] Richard: You and all of us.  
[2:13 PM] Zoe: When can we visit?  
[2:14 PM] Leslie: Please don't until I'm out of this room. You'd all be on the other side of a window talking through an intercom. It's not supposed to be like a jail but it's like a jail :stuck_out_tongue:  
[2:15 PM] Leslie: Here's me right now. 

The selfie - showing her disinfected face and freshly brushed teeth - really didn't tell her friends much other than that she looked all right and she was in good spirits, but that was almost all they really wanted to know anyway.

[2:15 PM] Richard: Tube in your wrist?  
[2:16 PM] Leslie: No, actually! No IV anything for this. :smile: Still taking my regular pills though. :frowning:  
[2:16 PM] Zoe: Hopefully not for much longer! :hearts:  
[2:17 PM] Leslie: IKR?! But it's going to be months :frowning:  
[2:17 PM] Susie: Months in the hospital?  
[2:18 PM] Leslie: No, at least I hope not! If it works, probably months still taking the same drugs I took before. I *might* be going home after quarantine but I'll still be doing physical therapy stuff 5 days a week for don't know how long  
[2:19 PM] Caroline: team leslie will be there  
[2:19 PM] Leslie: Don't you have work?  
[2:19 PM] Caroline: rn yes but team leslie will be there  
[2:20 PM] Zoe: Even if she's swamped, we'll find a way to be there.  
[2:20 PM] Susie: I didn't buy that stuff just to use it once.  
[2:20 PM] Leslie: Thank you all so much again. :heart:

Leslie, once again bereft of anything else to say, was actually a bit relieved when Caroline went offline, showing that she really did have work at the moment. Leslie stared at the ceiling, tracing the tiles with her eyes. She didn't know how this would shake out, no one did; she was Dr. Sinchurch's very first human test subject, after all. Just like Richard, she knew very well that like everything else in life, it could end well or it could end badly. But Zoe, her very beloved girlfriend (and Leslie found that she really did love her, loved her so deeply and so much) wanted everything to end well, and Zoe's brother, the Sith kid who inflicted bad ends, was supporting her as well. All of Team Leslie would be there for her.

She wished she had asked for a plushie or something to hug, but instead, she just cradled her phone and fell asleep.

[3:32 PM] Leslie: The nurse just woke me up for food. Actually here she is.

The smiling and waving nurse really did look like something out of a movie, the others judged. That was a full-body suit, with the faceplate and everything, very much appropriate for the 'clean room' environment.

[3:35 PM] Leslie: I know what this stuff is now! Congealed muscleman protein powder. It's okay, I'm used to it :laughing:  
[3:35 PM] Zoe: That's not saying much, we got used to spam.  
[3:35 PM] Richard: From captive bred or wild caught musclemen?  
[3:36 PM] Leslie: LMFAO to both of you  
[3:36 PM] Leslie: speaking of which, what have you been doing today Ricky?  
[3:36 PM] Zoe: :laughing:  
[3:36 PM] Zoe: she actually didn't tie him up too much today, just so he could chat  
[3:37 PM] Leslie: :joy: :joy: **I know you aren't joking**  
[3:37 PM] Leslie: Don't worry, nobody here will see this  
[3:38 PM] Leslie: Time to watch bunny videos  
[4:30 PM] Leslie: Dr. Sinchurch says hi, everybody!

Leslie unexpectedly started livestreaming, and of course Susie had the best phone, so Zoe and Richard looked over her shoulder to watch the doctor's assistant inject the gene therapies directly into the vein at the corner of her left elbow. Compared to everything else she'd been through that day, she barely even noticed the poke and the fluid entering her vein. And that was it. That was all that part of the therapy was, from her perspective.

[4:31 PM] Zoe: Tell him thanks from all of us for trying to make you better.

Leslie passed that on and got about what she'd expected in reply: "You're welcome, and I'll do everything I can to cure this disease."

[4:32 PM] Richard: Why doesn't he inject it himself?

Leslie asked him that, and Dr. Sinchurch - who looked almost exactly like the kind of not-quite-mad scientist the others had envisioned - answered directly into the camera that he was a researcher, not a medical doctor like Dr. Bonesnapp or even a registered nurse, so he wasn't even allowed to do it himself. That stuck with Richard long after the scientist and his companion had left the room. It was a big world, after all. Every professional had a specific job, a series of specialties, and Richard had already found his.

Leslie, staring at her arm and realizing that 'getting the gene therapy' was no longer in the future but the past, was not sure what to think or to talk about and went back to her bunny videos.

[6:27 PM] Leslie: Parents just visited. The glass and intercom are triggering me, idk why, just really hate it :frowning: DON'T COME HERE, I MEAN THAT  
[6:28 PM] Zoe: We won't.

Richard was used to being restrained by someone he loved. He was in the middle of that exactly then, his legs frog-tied under him and his feet in the booties just because Susie thought he was cuter that way, keeping him like that until it was time for him to put his heels back on and go make dinner. But the sort of confinement that Leslie was in very uncomfortably reminded him of the sorts of evils he'd read about, he understood the reason for her fear quite well, and he figured that the best way to alleviate it was to remind her why things were the way they were.

[6:28 PM] Richard: It's for keeping the viruses out, not keeping you in. :slight_smile:  
[6:29 PM] Zoe: Talk to us when you're ready.  
[6:42 PM] Leslie: Just texted parents a lot. It's easier than the intercom. And thanks Ricky.

Richard quickly tapped out 'You're welcome' on his phone and went back to petting Whiskers. 

Thursday.

[9:40 AM] Leslie: They woke me up to do tests and more stem cells!  
[9:41 AM] Leslie: Right into my diaphragm today. :frowning:  
[9:41 AM] Richard: That's one you really needed!  
[9:41 AM] Zoe: ^  
[9:42 AM] Leslie: I KNOW but it still HURTS they can't inject much lidocaine there :frowning:  
[9:42 AM] Zoe: Can you breathe okay?  
[9:43 AM] Leslie: Yes but please do not tell any jokes today. I'm serious. It will REALLY hurt if I laugh.  
[9:43 AM] Leslie: So, what are you all having for breakfast? More pureed powerbars here.  
[9:43 AM] Susie: Ice cream at the convenience store right now. Ricky's Sunshine again! :smile:

Looking at the picture that Susie sent, featuring Richard in his yellow outfit with a big smile on his face, Leslie wanted nothing more than to be out in the sunshine with Little Miss Sunshine. Just a week, she told herself, a week mostly in bed with her phone and her friends to chat with.

[9:44 AM] Leslie: Daaaawwwww. You're so cute Ricky.  
[9:44 AM] Richard: Thanks :heart:  
[9:44 AM] Zoe: He really is. :heart:  
[9:45 AM] Zoe: Remember that fic I showed you before? It was actually a fanfic of another long fic. 200+ big chapters.

leslie's eyes bugged out when she saw the link. Her English capabilities were far above those of most 14-year-olds, but a million-plus words was no joke.

[9:46 AM] Leslie: Oh wow that will take forever to read!  
[9:46 AM] Zoe: It's not boring though :smile:  
[9:46 AM] Leslie: I'll still be reading it after I'm out of quarantine :joy:  
[9:48 AM] Leslie: This really is good. Thanks Zoe! :hearts:  
[9:48 AM] Zoe: Just happy you like it. :hearts: Are you feeling all right in general?  
[9:48 AM] Leslie: Same as usual. Which is fine. :smile:  
[10:00 AM] Caroline: ok worked it out with dad - what time is phys therapy?  
[10:02 AM] Leslie: Twice a day. I asked for 9 to 10 and 6 to 7 as soon as quarantine is over. (earliest and latest times they have)  
[10:02 AM] Caroline: that works for me  
[10:03 AM] Leslie: Actually Mindy's getting a bicycle thing set up attached to the bed. It's weird looking and I'll need help for it but I must move my legs or else  
[10:03 AM] Susie: "Or else"?  
[10:04 AM] Leslie: Or else atrophy. Not fun. :frowning:  
[12:15 PM] Leslie: Oh god this thing is so weird to use :laughing: I'll stream it  
[12:16 PM] Zoe: That actually looks like fun.  
[12:16 PM] Caroline: your legs ok like that?  
[12:17 PM] Leslie: It is fun until they add resistance :frowning: And yeah I have to be attached to it. It's ok.

The truth, which she would tell neither Mindy nor the Squad nor her parents nor anyone else, was that she actually kinda hated the thing for the reasons she hated all of the rest of it but could never say. She hated being bedridden. She hated being broken and she hated the long process of being fixed. She hated the fact that even the tiniest bit of resistance gave her legs such a problem. She knew it wouldn't be just a magic injection and then done, she had been told in no uncertain terms that there would be time and retraining and therapy even if it worked perfectly, but what she knew and what she wanted were two totally different things, and she just wanted this all to be over, she just wanted out, the same emotion she'd sporadically felt for years.

But she also knew that there was no use in complaining, that there was no one to be mad at for her disease, that nothing with a mind had inflicted Duchenne's on her, that things were the way they were because of physical realities and not some evil person's actions, and she was not in the habit of blaming God. Every human still in her life was doing his or her best to make her well, that was the whole point of the room and even that crazy bicycle-thing, and if any human had been trying to make things worse on her, Richard would have already flipped from sissy to Sith, done his thing, and removed that poor excuse for a human from her life one way or another. She wouldn't disappoint Zoe and the rest of Team Leslie by being a crybaby about this. She had things to read. She had vidoes to watch. She would not freak out.

Four hours later, she texted Zoe again, who told her about the afternoon's activities. Apparently, Susie had decided that it would be a worthwhile and appropriate activity for her little sissy boyfriend to show her his drawings of cute things that she picked out. Unfortunately, it had turned out that Richard really couldn't draw at all, and so he had spent hours trying his level best to do it the way Susie drew it. (Susie hadn't picked up her colored pencils in a while, and it was actually a learning experience for the both of them.) Then Richard had clearly hit his limit for the day and the two of them had gone to the pool. He'd try again tomorrow.

Friday.

[9:29 AM] Leslie: THEY INJECTED MY HEART FROM THE INSIDE!  
[9:30 AM] Leslie: And I was wrong, I have an IV now  
[9:30 AM] Leslie: They said I can't ingest too much protein or it would hurt my digestion  
[9:31 AM] Leslie: **I am literally getting an amino acid (protein) INFUSION IN AN IV TUBE**  
[9:31 AM] Leslie: also immune system booster stuff, no more suppression  
[9:31 AM] Richard: Wow, Leslie, you *really* need your ground-up musclemen!  
[9:32 AM] Susie: I'm spanking him for that.  
[9:32 AM] Leslie: :joy: :joy: :joy: :joy: :joy:

Leslie would never tell the nurse, who was in the middle of changing her diaper, why she was laughing so hard. At least it didn't hurt too much.

[9:33 AM] Leslie: oh yeah I had a really bad nightmare that I was in jail :frowning: The nurse offered to stay with me but I don't want that, Zoe please talk to me  
[9:33 AM] Zoe: Right here. Talk about anything.

The two of them proceeded to spend the rest of the day, almost twelve hours straight, talking about anything and everything. Few things interrupted them; they both occasionally needed food and exercise, Zoe's phone ran out of juice in the middle of the day (Leslie usually just left hers plugged in), and she briefly found it hard to text while her brother minced around her in his pretty dress and heels, adroitly maneuvering a loud, powerful vacuum cleaner. Zoe listened patiently while Leslie made it very clear that day after day of being trapped behind a glass wall, stuck in a hospital bed and only moved around for exercise and to keep the bedsores away, was wearing on her teenage nerves.

She was, however, greatly amused by Richard's primitive, cute, and child-like drawings. He had carefully tried Whiskers from life - well, mostly memory, as it wasn't easy to get a cat to sit still - under Susie's guidance, and the results weren't all that hideous. Art probably never really would be his thing, but Susie was enjoying herself, and he had to admit that it was nice to be a person who could kinda sketch something without looking like a complete idiot.

Saturday.

[11:30 AM] Leslie: Stem cells are done and no more IV musclemen. Thank God that's over! How are you guys?  
[11:31 AM] Zoe: Taking a walk with Mom, this time with "no ugly surprises" (her words). Ricky's dressed like a boy again :sticking_out_tongue: You doing okay?  
[11:32 AM] Leslie: Immune cell counts are rising. **Two more days of this and I can go outside!!** At least we all hope so  
[11:32 AM] Richard: When this is all over, let's go for a walk where we are now.

It was Richard's turn to show an image, this time of a dirt trail with roots and rocks all over the place. Leslie actually typed up a reply saying that there was no way she could do a thing like that, the wheelchair wouldn't fit and the braces were just no way, when she realized that that was the whole point and that Richard was being optimistic.

It was obvious that she was having a hard time replying, as two minutes of "Leslie is typing..." led to an "Okay. :slight_smile:" But Leslie was feeling better about herself, looking forward to her release, being able to walk on forest floors and actually keeping up, that she just read that long fic Zoe had linked to her and was content.

Heather was not content. She hadn't been sulking over the past week, not quite. But the characteristics of her dreams, her thoughts, had changed somewhat. She had forced herself out of bed every morning that week for her children's sake and none other. And what were they worried about? A girl who couldn't force herself out of bed. Someone who had it even worse than she did, even worse than they did. She asked about Leslie, things she probably should have asked a while ago, about her disease and the treatment and how long she would have to wait to see any results. The answers to that last part were unclear and up in the air, but that was to be expected from experimental medical treatment. She knew that her daughter would feel awful if it didn't work; her actions over her life had made Zoe suffer quite enough, in multiple ways, and she hoped that God wouldn't be cruel enough to make the girl suffer any more.

She wished that her husband had been buried rather than cremated and his ashes given back to his parents. She wanted nothing more than to visit his grave with their children, just to have something to say sorry to.

At least her son didn't have any problem with helping her across difficult terrain.

[4:27 PM] Leslie: Ow ow ow. Doctor took teensy samples of my muscles. I GET WHY it's just ow  
[4:28 PM] Zoe: Did the gene therapy work?  
[4:28 PM] Leslie: Won't know for days :frowning:  
[4:29 PM] Leslie: He'll be doing that every two weeks for the next three months :frowning:

Sunday.

[8:11 AM] Leslie: Caroline you have off today right?  
[8:11 AM] Caroline: at the princess' house rn actually  
[8:13 AM] Leslie: PLEASE don't just do nothing today because I'm not there. Go running or frolfing or something. I'm out tomorrow. Could have been today but they wanted to be safe. It's fine.  
[8:15 AM] Susie: I was actually going to take Ricky out for a skip today. That's a great way to go frolfing, thanks for the idea Leslie :smile:  
[8:15 AM] Leslie: Do it do it do it!  
[8:15 AM] Zoe: We're going to the way-out one where we went before.  
[8:16 AM] Zoe: Looking forward to you jumping over the ditch yourself.  
[8:16 AM] Leslie: Or maybe I'll just carry you. :heart:  
[8:16 AM] Zoe: I would love that, not kidding :hearts: :hearts: :hearts:

The group belatedly realized that the faraway course was out of data range, but texting still worked and Leslie wasn't upset about it. It was also a very pleasant surprise that absolutely no one else was there when they arrived, and so Susie's sweet little sissy boy, in his pigtails, rainbow dress, crinkly diaper, and heeled sneakers, could skip along everywhere he went without risk of strange looks.

Richard was on cloud nine the whole time. In his daily life, the food was great, the sex was wonderful, and the bondage was highly enjoyable. But this kind of thing was what Richard really loved about his relationship with Susie, that she helped him to be his inner self, the pretty little sweetie he'd been protecting his whole life, and nothing would even slightly discourage him from it. He was a growing boy wearing an extraordinarily cute outfit and skipping along from place to place like a little girl half his age, and his friends totally expected it of him. He was comfortable, safe, and very, very happy. Humiliation, fear, hurt, deprivation, serious oppression, real punishment - those were things that were not in his life, until he found reason to inflict them on the deserving.

Instead, his only worry was of throwing too hard as he did his best to keep his score low, and there were occasional gusts of wind that stymied each of them once in a while. Someone's disc did go into the bushes a couple of times - that was practically guaranteed - but there were many more on-target hits, including a very near hole-in-one by Susie (glanced right off the chain!) that her friends eagerly clapped for. Although Caroline still won handily, all four of them did better that time than they had before, and they laughed and congratulated each other, paying no mind to the people who had recently arrived at the park and were glancing their way, idly wondering if the flat-chested, broad-shouldered girl in the rainbow dress was a lesbian.

[1:11 PM] Leslie: How was it? :smiley:  
[1:11 PM] Richard: Lots of fun! :smile:  
[1:12 PM] Caroline: think we might have gotten dehydrated, all chugging drinks rn  
[1:12 PM] Leslie: Meanwhile I'm drinking so much water every day. They're still worried about my digestion.  
[1:13 PM] Leslie: Diaper changes every three hours. There is an automatic toilet attachment but they don't want to use it on me.  
[1:13 PM] Zoe: That sounds even less pleasant  
[1:14 PM] Leslie: It probably would be.  
[1:16 PM] Leslie: btw I know you all have fun with the fetish but once this is done and it works I'm never wearing one again EVER, I AM SO DONE FOREVER WITH THEM  
[1:16 PM] Zoe: I get that 100%  
[1:16 PM] Susie: We totally understand.  
[1:19 PM] Leslie: One time my dad was talking to me about 'genital privacy' and disabilities and I laughed, I haven't had that for **years**

Leslie scrunched up her face in her hospital bed, half-consciously pedaling on the cycling machine that she'd been strapped into earlier that day and encouraged to use regularly. Just typing that line had made her remember something she'd rather have kept buried. Shortly before her birth parents had lost custody of her, her weakening muscles had caused her to wet herself, just a little bit in public, and then they'd dragged her to the car, swearing the whole time. Cliff, the man she'd once called her father, had pulled down her wet pants and underwear, and then his wife Bonita had screamed at him that Leslie would just get the seat wet instead, and so he'd angrily balled her clothes up under her before hitting the gas, asking Leslie why she couldn't just have held it for two more minutes and not actually caring about the answer.

She knew that reliving these kinds of bad memories was an incredibly bad idea, especially when she was in a hospital trying to get fixed, but what she knew and what she felt were entirely different things. It was all so stupid. If she was lucky, they could fix her Duchenne, but they couldn't fix her PTSD.

[1:21 PM] Leslie: sorry I'm rambling  
[1:21 PM] Zoe: Ramble all day, it's okay.  
[1:22 PM] Leslie: actually I'm going to read that fic you sent me some more, see you tomorrow Zoe :hearts:  
[1:22 PM] Zoe: :hearts: :hearts: :hearts:  
[1:24 PM] Leslie: I'm getting out at 8:30 tomorrow right before therapy but prepare to wait

Zoe subtly shook her head, there in Caroline's car with the rest of her friends, not typing the reply she first thought of. She'd already been waiting for days, and being physically separated from Leslie was grating on her badly, but how could she tell her that? 'I miss you and it's hurting me' sounded totally, outlandishly selfish to say to someone who was actually in an isolation room being poked with needles on a regular basis, and it would have just made Leslie feel worse.

[1:25 PM] Zoe: As long as I have to, Leslie. I love you. :hearts:  
[1:26 PM] Leslie: I love you too Zoe. :hearts:

Leslie almost typed how much she'd missed Zoe, how much she wanted to just be near her if nothing else, but there wasn't a lot of point. Zoe was worried enough about her already, they all were, and saying that would have just made her even more worried. She tried to immerse herself in her reading, but the time did not go quickly. She almost asked her friends what they were doing, but she knew the answer to that: whatever they wanted. Richard was certainly dressed up, probably tied up, or was it Caroline's turn for that? It didn't matter. Whatever they were doing, they were certainly having a lot of fun, and she would join them tomorrow.


	22. When Power Is of No Use

Everyone important to Leslie showed up at the hospital Monday morning, which was kind of awkward for everyone involved. Of course her parents wanted to spend time with her, her friends realized. Of course her friends wanted to spend time with her, her parents realized. Leslie was happy that she had so many people who wanted to be with her, especially after being stuck in isolation for so long, but before she could really spend time with any of them, after all the hellos and hugs and hopes that it wasn't too horrible of an experience, it was time to go to the physical therapy center.

Under normal circumstances, Mindy would have said something to Leslie about privacy, that some of this might be embarrassing at the least and that her friends were going to see her do a lot more things than just the simple swimming, but the four of them were actually wearing the bespoke, glittery pink, Team Leslie T-shirts - one of them a boy in pigtails! - that other staff members had, through the grapevine, told her about. They obviously didn't care about being embarrassed, so why should Leslie? Hot spicy Jesus did Mindy wish she'd had friends willing to do that when it was her turn. Of course, Leslie's parents were there too, and Mindy had helped a few underage children, usually boys, who didn't really want to do things in front of their mothers, but Leslie was comfortable with the idea.

Leslie's psychological circumstances were the best they would possibly be, but what Mindy had to tell the girl was taxing to any child's psyche. She began the lecture before she began any kind of therapy; Leslie would have to exercise just enough, know what certain things felt like, understand the differences between different types of pain, and always, always be careful for rhabdomyolysis, a term that Leslie already knew but hadn't really thought about for a long time.

This wasn't the advice she was expecting. She was expecting to undergo grueling training, to be told 'Try your hardest. Fight through the pain. Keep going no matter what.' Instead, the advice she got was 'Pace yourself. Try exactly as hard as you need to, but no harder and no easier.' Difficult advice for a fourteen-year-old to follow, especially one who just wanted to be done with all this, and she was relieved when Mindy finished the lecture and went on to taking off the hospital robe she'd come in with and dipping her swimsuit-clad body into a pool not much bigger than Susie's hot tub.

Robert looked at the group, thinking of things to say but keeping quiet. He and his wife had been talking about how attending all these therapy sessions was a big commitment for kids their age, right after Willa had made another formalized agreement with Caroline's father, similar to the one they had regarding Leslie being driven to the YMCA. (Willa had even offered money, but Caroline had refused to accept it.) It wasn't something that most teenagers would even consider doing every day, let alone making full uniforms for it, but these kids were clearly very, very different.

Willa decided to say what she was thinking, speaking in a low whisper as Mindy went through range-of-motion exercises with each one of her daughter's limbs, one joint at a time. "She might have to come here for months. Are you going to keep being here the whole time?" The question was open-ended on purpose; any other way might have been taken as insulting.

Susie's reply was the aristocratic one, using a tone she had never taken with an adult. "You're talking like this is a commitment that we have to do rather than something we want to do and will want to do tomorrow and the day after that until she doesn't need it anymore." Neither one of Leslie's parents knew quite how to reply to that. The four of them were just so unusual - no, the five of them, she had to remind herself, and she was happy for her daughter.

They didn't pay full attention - it would have been weird if they did - but they did pay attention. They'd come to cheer her on, but there just wasn't much to cheer. No grueling activities, no swimming laps. Just a girl in a rather large tank of water, specifically for people with muscular dystrophies, having her limbs and body moved around while she was asked to do specific motions. But Zoe, most importantly, was by far the most attentive of them, and whenever Leslie made some small sound of pain, Zoe was always watching with sympathy.

It was over before the allotted hour was up, Mindy told her that she would only be doing that one session that day, and the therapist took the tired, subtly weird-feeling girl off to a small, private room to change into normal clothes, the first she'd worn in a long time. But how could she consider any clothes normal when she couldn't put them on herself and there was a diaper under them? Normal would have been what she'd had when she was eight, being able to just do things without needing help, and this time, she wouldn't have crazy parents to deal with.

"So, where are we going?" Willa asked in Leslie's direction when they were all back together.

"I was going to suggest going out to eat, but with things the way they are and her coming off that immune thing, I'm not sure where to go," Robert said. "Was thinking about going home and watching movies. Leslie, it's your day, what do you want to do?"

Leslie, put on the spot, had a very hard time choosing between her friends and parents. "My place," Susie rescued her with. "We'll make breakfast and we've got a big screen for movies." Leslie immediately agreed, surprised that she'd even suggested it; they all were, even Richard, as it was where they went to do things that their parents would not approve of. But, to Susie, it was simply her house, and hospitality was one of her ways of demonstrating that she was in charge of everything around her, and so she gave her address to Leslie's parents with a big smile on her face.

"All right, well, I have to get home at eleven, so we do have time, but only if we get going now. Let's get a head start on breakfast," Caroline said, hustling to her car. Zoe chose to hang back and ride with Leslie instead, which surprised no one.

Zoe marveled at how so much easier it was to get Leslie, wheelchair and all, into the car when half the car was designed for it, and then Robert easily transferred her into a built-in, central seat that looked surprisingly like a child's car seat. Where had - oh, right! How had she forgotten? That was the thing Caroline's shop had done, that was how they'd all met in the first place!

"So, Leslie, did you manage to keep busy while you were in there?" Robert broke the ice with after getting into the driver's seat.

"Yeah, I had a lot of... help," Leslie replied slowly. She sounded like she was embarrassed by the question.

Of course she was, and both of her parents realized that they probably shouldn't have let Zoe in the car if he was going to ask such questions, but just the way that Leslie was - or wasn't - replying told them everything. Being stuck in that room had only been tolerable because she'd been able to talk to her friends the whole time, and of course a 14-year-old needed support from her friends and girlfriend more than she needed it from Mom and Dad. That was how teenagers were, and both Willa and Robert had dealt with the fallout from parents - and teenagers - who had not understood that fact.

Leslie and Zoe talked in somewhat hushed tones there in the spacious back, but neither one of Leslie's parents even needed to overhear to know exactly what they were saying: They'd missed each other so much, they didn't even want to admit that they were missing each other because the other one would have felt bad about it, and they never, ever wanted to be separated for that long ever again. They grew quiet after a while, just enjoying being together.

"Hey, Susie wants to know if either of you have any food allergies," Zoe asked when they were halfway there, looking up from her phone.

"We don't, but it's good that she's asking," Willa said, watching the GPS to make sure her husband was making the correct turns.

"Yeah, she's used to feeding people," Zoe replied, and that sent Leslie into a giggling fit, she knew she shouldn't be laughing in there with her parents in the car, but the sudden mental image of Richard and Susie feeding her parents through strapped pacifiers was just too funny. Her parents, fortunately, took it as an in-joke that they'd never get.

"At least she can cook," Willa said. "One girl in my Home Economics class tried to cook an egg without cracking it first."

"Oh my God!" Zoe shouted, laughing, and Leslie was already giddy with laughter. "Did it explode?"

"No, the teacher got to it before that happened. She was saying 'it'll crack on its own', I can't even imagine what she was thinking."

"Now imagine the teacher trying to stop it over a Zoom call," Robert said, but that rather killed the mood. "And Leslie, whenever you get the chance, try to pay attention to Susie's cooking. If this gives you enough independence to cook for yourself, you might want to start feeding people the way she does." He could never have guessed why she found that absolutely hilarious.

But it was rather to his surprise that Caroline was the one who opened the door as he wheeled Leslie in, offering greetings and pleasantries, as both Susie and Richard were in the kitchen. Willa was shocked that a man like Majid would leave Susie in a house this large all by herself, and she flatly boggled at the inside in much the same way as all of Susie's friends had the first time. There was a sense to the place, a positive but weird feeling that Willa felt hard to define. Robert just wondered how on earth Susie kept the place clean. They heard a hiss from the living room, and Whiskers, sitting up on the couch, expressed his disapproval at the unfamiliar smells suddenly intruding into his territory, and the group chuckled at the mad cat.

Willa and Robert watched Susie and Richard in the kitchen, amazed at how well they were doing. God, how many times did she and her husband get in each other's way when they were trying to cook together? Susie's kitchen was large and lavishly equipped, but both of the adults were still impressed.

They also both noticed that the teens, except Susie, were very slightly nervous, but that much was to be expected. This was their private hang-out spot, and teenagers tend not to like it when adults find their way into those, like interlopers invading a sacred temple. It almost felt like they expected the adults to find some dirty secret, and even their daughter seemed to be worried that they might find something incriminating if they went looking for it, but neither one of them could have even imagined what it would be. Alcohol, drugs? No, certainly not something like that. Used condoms? These kids were smarter than to leave things like that lying around. 

At any rate, if there was something incriminating somewhere in the house, neither one of them wanted to know what it was, and they thanked Richard profusely as he perfectly scraped pancakes onto each of their plates with a plastic spatula.

His behavior was actually a little bit uncanny. Overpoliteness, overwillingness to please, was often a sign of something much worse going on, and there were a lot of girls and even a few boys that they'd encountered over the years who were so apologetic, so desperate to be perfect in everything and please all the adults around them, that it was very obvious that they'd be seriously hurt if they weren't. They figured that it must just be his 'girl side' expressing itself in the most outwardly feminine activities he could partake in, as obviously no one there had any power over him.

Richard received the adults' thanks and smiled, knowing that his princess was proud of him for being a good host.

Robert let himself relax. His wife and daughter were having a pleasant morning, and there wasn't any reason he shouldn't be having one too. This was all just so utterly rare for him, that he was able to be somewhere that the children didn't have severe psychological issues; in fact, he figured that they were probably better put-together mentally than he was. He'd been at his job too long, he'd just seen too much shit, and the comparison made him feel like he and his wife were being given a personal reward for taking care of his adoptive daughter. Other than the nervousness at having an adult in their sanctum, that was exactly what they were doing.

Willa suddenly understood the feeling she'd had earlier. Often, she could figure out the nature of what was wrong with a family just by walking into their house. Too many crucifixes on the walls, trash strewn around, hoarding, weird smells, some things carefully taken care of but others totally neglected. She was feeling the exact opposite of that. She figured that this was what a church was actually supposed to be like, and if she were religious, she would have thought of Susie's house as under divine protection.

It was with that attitude that they kept going for the rest of the day. There was just a lot to do there, for all of them. Willa and Robert almost wished they'd brought their swimsuits, to make use of Susie's pool, but their daughter was in no condition to swim anyway. Susie's rec room was a nice place, although neither of the adults had any experience at anything down there, although they did make use of the old-school foosball table.

They did watch a movie together, and Robert and Willa didn't mind their daughter snuggling with her girlfriend. It was so tender, so pure, the two of them not really wanting to talk much in front of Leslie's parents but not needing to. Robert and Willa found a place to talk quietly, leaving the girls on a couch together, and came to an agreement.

After dinner - another meal cooked by the group - it was time to go, but to Zoe's surprise, Leslie's parents offered to leave her with them. "Listen," Willa said to Zoe in a tone of extreme seriousness. "For the next few days at least, we actually need you to look after her. She can't be left alone, and I need you to make sure that she isn't urinating anything red. If anything happens, if she starts breathing funny or becomes incoherent or anything, you call 911, you get her to the hospital. She'd still be there right now if it weren't for COVID. Is this something you can do?" Zoe agreed immediately, reflexively, but she didn't understand right away why her parents didn't do it themselves. Leslie was horribly embarrassed, but the doctor had already told her this exact thing before she'd left the hospital that morning, it made sense, and the idea of Zoe looking after her even more than usual was strangely comforting. "Susie, can she stay here, is that all right with you?"

"Of course, no problem," Susie immediately replied. Zoe suddenly got it. Leslie's parents knew that the two of them would be sleeping in the same bed, and that's exactly what they wanted. Being closely intimate as they slept would let Zoe know if her girlfriend was having breathing trouble or some other medical problem.

Leslie's parents bid their goodbyes, reminded her to take her pills - they left the whole supply - and left for home. "I just want to know why all of you were acting so nervous, at least at first," Susie said the moment they'd gone.

"Susie, you brought her parents to the place where you and Ricky have baby bondage sex!" Zoe leaned in and said, as if someone were around to overhear her, and Leslie started laughing.

"This is my house, Zoe, not an S&M dungeon," Susie pointed out, annoyed.

"Not just an S&M dungeon," Richard interjected, smirking.

Susie turned to him, annoyed, and said the first thing that came to mind. "Ricky, I will put you over my knee."

"See what I mean?" Richard replied with an even bigger smirk, and by this point, Zoe was laughing with her hand over her face and Leslie was almost in tears from laughter.

"I know it's your house, but still!" Zoe jumped in with before the two of them could go any further. "I just wish Whiskers liked them."

"He was only grumpy because his food dish was empty. And you're only grumpy because you had to be separated for five days," Susie said.

Zoe made as if to argue, then she just sighed and decided not to. "You're right, I am." The concept of embarrassment had basically died, so she just said what she was really thinking, right there in front of all of them. "Leslie, I just wish I could hug you and make everything okay." It was so utterly childish, but that was the world she wished for, where now that she had the therapy done, all Zoe would have to do was give her a long hug until her muscles worked properly.

"We've been doing that," Leslie reminded her, and they laughed. "Are you going to keep wearing those?" she asked. The other three were still in their Team Leslie outfits.

Susie sat next to her with a very serious expression. "Every day you have therapy until you can walk by yourself. Your mom asked the same thing. We'll keep doing this as long as you need it. We are here. We will stay here."

Zoe called her mother and told her everything that Willa had told her, that Leslie could not be left alone and that she'd have to be with her at night, and Heather did not object, just as long as she got to spend time with her children sometimes as well. There was a firmness in Zoe's voice, a protectiveness, the same protectiveness that Leslie's friends had always had for her from the very first. Maybe, when this was all over, Leslie would be the one doing the protecting.

The group did exactly as they said they would do over the next couple of days, although Caroline had a different attitude about it than the rest of them. They had taken on going to Leslie's therapy sessions as a willing obligation. Caroline saw them as an opportunity to relax, to just watch what was basically a documentary, although her job really was starting to wind down, just as her father had known it would. She knew what her friends were doing without her, although she was surprised when Richard asked to be dropped off at his own house on Wednesday. It made sense, though. Despite their relationship, Susie wouldn't monopolize all his time, and he had exercises to do, games to play, and things to learn by himself. Zoe, on the other hand, had absolutely no reason to be anywhere other than Susie's house with Leslie, and everything she wanted to interact with was on her phone or Susie's systems.

Thursday's morning session was the usual, with Leslie's parents at work but her friends there as Team Leslie, but she felt good and bad at the same time and had no idea how to express it. There was more pain and weakness than usual, but there was always a little bit of the former and lots of the latter, and there was a strange sensation as well. She just felt weird, almost poisoned somehow, but she'd received experimental therapy, of course she felt weird. She certainly didn't want to tell Mindy anything misleading. Figuring that this was probably supposed to happen, she continued going through the motions, bending her arms and kicking her legs in the water and smiling when Mindy told her that she was doing better than she had a few days ago and that they'd be taking strength measurements next week.

And she got to spend time with Caroline again, finally. Her father had taken a look at what needed to be finished that day, considered who else would be coming in, and just told Caroline that she'd be better off spending time with her friends instead. Caroline hadn't complained one bit.

At least this time her friends didn't wear their Team Leslie outfits all day. That would have been weird. Instead, they wore their normal clothes - normal for them, of course. Susie in her rich girl clothes, the three other girls in T-shirts and jean shorts, and Richard in a pretty dress and heels, keeping the house clean like a good boy while the girls watched a chick flick together.

But Leslie was just so tired for some reason, and her eyes kept drooping shut during the movie. Everything was weird and hurt, and she knew she should have cared more about that, but she just wanted to sleep. "Hey, you all right?" Zoe got her attention with. "This is the good part."

"I'm fine, just tired," Leslie replied, slurring her words a bit, and Zoe suddenly got suspicious.

"I need to see something," she said quickly, pulling down her jeans to check her diaper, which she could tell was somewhat damp.

The inside of it was somewhat pink, and Zoe knew damn well that it wasn't menstruation.

"You need to get to the hospital now," Zoe shouted immediately, her own voice strangled in terror and panic, fishing out her phone from her pocket to call 911.

"Don't call the ambulance, I can get there quicker than it'll be here and back," Caroline said. "Can you-" But Richard was already there, he'd already kicked off his heels and put one arm around Leslie's upper body and the other around her legs, and one swift motion later, he'd simply picked her up. In a sudden flash of insight, he realized where all his extra food was going and that all the workouts he'd been doing really had been getting easier for him. His growing body, now pumped full of adrenaline, simply didn't care one way or another that he dressed like a girl. He walked outside on the hot concrete barefoot, caring neither about the sharp pain in his feet nor the ache in his arms, and Susie quickly grabbed his socks and sneakers and ran out after the group. Zoe's paralysis and terror had broken, and she was busy calling Leslie's mother, trying desperately to stay coherent, as she rushed to the car with the rest of them. Caroline opened the back door and Richard's spine protested as he put Leslie in. (It was only then that he realized that Leslie's pants were still down.)

Richard rubbed his feet with his socks before putting them on in the car, and Susie was calling Dr. Bonesnapp with Leslie's phone, telling him in a surprisingly calm voice what had happened and that they were on their way to the ER. Caroline was driving faster than usual, but she didn't break any traffic laws too severely, and she knew exactly where she was going. Zoe took a moment to pull Leslie's pants back up and watched her breathing, the all-too-weak rise and fall of her chest, and wondered if she should try to force more oxygen into her lungs. "Breathe, Leslie!" she settled on saying. "Just focus on breathing, you have to breathe!"

Leslie tried to make herself wake up all the way, to make herself think, to make herself breathe. She felt even more floaty, weird, hurty. She knew in the abstract that there were things going on, that she was in serious rhabdo at the least, that she was being taken to the hospital and that this was an emergency, but she didn't really perceive it fully, she wasn't panicking because she didn't feel any panic. Right, breathe, she had to do what Zoe told her, she had to focus on breathing and nothing else, she had to stay alive. Her heart was beating, and she was breathing, so she was alive.

Caroline pulled up right next to the door and pushed open the swinging entrance door; Richard was carrying Leslie through it a few seconds later. A pigtailed boy wearing a dress, carrying a prepubescent girl, wasn't even the weirdest thing that the emergency room's desk nurse had seen that week, and Dr. Bonesnapp was already at the entrance, next to two nurses (one of them a surprisingly burly man) and a stretcher that they had been about to push out the door. Richard, not wasting a movement, immediately laid Leslie down on it, and the medical team took over at once. He had expected talking, but there was no time for talking, Susie had already done all the talking on the way there. Within seconds, Leslie was being wheeled down the hall with an oxygen mask over her face and then she was gone, leaving the group in a mostly empty emergency room with only the desk nurse and the door guard, a uniformed police officer, for company.

Susie, still holding Leslie's phone, gave it to the desk nurse to pass it on. Zoe, beside herself with fear and grief, sat down heavily on one of the seats.

"Friends and family can't wait in here," the desk nurse called out, apologetic but firm. Oh, that was why the place was empty. "You'll have to leave. It's because of the pandemic, sorry."

"What?! No, no, I need to stay here, I need to be here," Zoe sobbed, as her friends started motioning for her to get up.

"If her condition changes, we'll call," the desk nurse said, and the officer at the door was moving towards them.

"She's in good hands, Zoe. There's nothing we can do here. Let's go," Susie said, and Caroline was pushing her to her feet, and she realized that she was making a scene - not uncommon in an emergency room, nothing they hadn't seen before - and, sobbing, she let her other friends and brother guide her out the door that the officer had generously opened for her. 

They sat in the car together - in their usual positions, only with one of their number not there - and Caroline didn't start it right away. She, too, was emotional, although she had done a good job of hiding it. "They have oxygen in ambulances," she said. "Probably should have just called."

"She was breathing, Caroline. You got her here really quick," Susie replied. "She's not going to die, she's not going to be brain damaged or something either. She won't!" Susie's tone was so forceful, so harsh, that it sounded more like she was trying to convince herself. Caroline looked around, put the car in gear, and started driving back to Susie's place. Where else was there to go?

"Just take me home," Zoe said. "Wait, no, don't, I need to be with you, with a car, if they call... we can't just stay in the parking lot, can we?"

"Zoe! She's got at least two doctors, a physical therapist, and a whole bunch of nurses," Susie snapped. "She'll be fine. There's no reason to sit here. There's nothing left to do. Someone will call, maybe even her." Zoe, unable to argue, just sobbed instead.

Richard made a series of frustrated noises. His mind, too, was in chaos the whole way back, and not because his spine still hurt a little bit. Targetless, his anger, his power, thrashed around his mind like a trapped animal, and his fists were clenched. He wanted someone to kill and there was no one to kill. He still did not believe in God, but he prayed anyway as he had before, sending a wish out into the universe and hoping but not believing that something was listening to him or that he could change the flow of reality by force of will alone. ('Satan, are you there? It's me, Richard.')

"Can you take her upstairs?" Susie asked Caroline. "I need to talk to Ricky." Understanding completely, Caroline guided the completely pliant Zoe up the stairs. "Why are you upset?" she asked him firmly.

"Because I can't do anything," Richard said through half-clenched teeth.

"You did everything you could," Susie told him. "Say it!"

"I did everything I could," Richard repeated.

"You said that wrong, how do you address me?" Susie asked sharply.

"I did everything I could, Your Highness."

"And is there anything else you can do about her right now?" Susie's voice was even more forceful.

"No, Your Highness."

"That's right. Now you are going to put your heels back on, finish your chores, and make food for Whiskers. I am going to go talk to your sister." She lightly slapped him on the butt to get him going.

"Yes, Your Highness," Richard replied, swapping his socks and sneakers for his heels and mincing to finish his chores like a good sissy, feeling very, very grateful that she was dominating him, taking his choices away. But what choices? She was right: he'd done everything he could. There was nothing Susie could do about this either, but there was something she could do about him, so she was doing that instead.

Zoe was sitting on the bed where she'd spent time with Leslie, crying as Caroline put her arm around her, looking up at Susie as she walked in the door. "Why didn't I see it sooner?" Zoe asked. "She was so messed up, and it was hours..."

"You did see it!" Susie said sharply, causing both Zoe and Caroline to look up. "You were the one who told us. You saw it, you knew it, and you caught it. If you weren't paying attention, she'd still be here, getting worse. You did what you could, Zoe."

"Susie isn't wrong," Caroline said. "We all did what we could. I drove, Susie called the doctor, Ricky grabbed her - he's getting strong, by the way - and you sounded the alarm. She's at the hospital. There's nothing more for us to do for her."

"But is there something we can do for you?" Susie asked gently, and Zoe realized what she could do, what they did, what she needed.

"Baby me," Zoe said suddenly, to Susie's surprise. She'd thought that Richard would be the one asking for it, but it was his sister instead. She definitely needed two sets of that stuff. "I'm helpless right now anyway, right?" She pulled her phone out of her pocket. "I don't even want to look at this thing right now! Go get that prom dress you have here," Susie had forgotten all about that. "and just... baby me. The whole thing. Let me out if somebody says something about her, oh, and make sure Ricky tells Mom what's going on."

Susie patted her gently on the shoulder. "You got it. Caroline, you want to help?"

"No problemo." The two of them got to work.

Richard's mind was still roiling somewhat as he did his chores, but at least he didn't have his mother to contend with anymore, at all, in general. It was a very simple and brief conversation: Leslie was in the hospital, they were waiting for news, and Zoe needed time alone. Heather completely understood and offered best wishes, to all of them, before hanging up and returning to work. He had just finished pulling the clothes out of the dryer when Caroline called out, "Hey, I've gotta go pee, can one of you look after her?"

"I'll do it," Richard called back, not sure quite what he was volunteering for. Look after who? He blinked in surprise when he saw who was there.

Zoe was lying on the bed in that pink prom dress she'd despised so much, her bootied feet (the booties were a bit big on her) poking out from the fabric. He was certain that she was thickly diapered underneath. The mittens were on her hands with her arms holding a plushie, the same one Caroline had hugged before, and she had the pacifier strapped to her mouth, the fleece wrapped around her head (no goggles), and the noise-canceling headphones on. "Just tell her if there's anything about Leslie," Caroline said, and Richard sat where Caroline had been sitting.

This was one of those 'my life has totally changed' moments for Richard. He was sitting right next to his helplessly babified sister as she hugged a plushie and suckled on her pacifier, insensate to the world, and all he could really worry about was whether or not her girlfriend was going to be okay. And Zoe, as well. He leaned over and gently brushed his sister's hair with his fingers, seeing a smile behind the pacifier. He couldn't blame her for wanting this, for wanting to just completely turn off for a while because she couldn't deal with anything. He would have been in an even worse state if something had happened to Susie.

Her phone went off, startling Richard, and he picked it up. It was Willa with a text: 'Leslie is in stable condition. She's asleep, on oxygen and fluids. She will be okay. Thank you so much for this.'

Richard tapped on his sister, unwinding the fleece around her head and showing her the text. Zoe, surprised to see him there but not caring that much, held out her mittens and he took them off and handed her the phone. She slowly tapped out, not sure what to say, 'Please tell me if she gets better. I'm so worried I can't think.' She really couldn't think of anything else, so she just hit send, and after a 'Will do.' in reply, she put the phone back on the table and held out her hands again. He put her back in the mittens and wrapped the fleece around her head again, making sure not to catch her hair in it. "Thank you, Ricky," she quietly mumbled around the pacifier, cuddling the plushie again, feeling safe knowing that her girly yet surprisingly strong brother was watching over her.

She stayed that way for the rest of the day. Her friends, taking turns being with her, changed her diapers (lifting up the poofy dress to do so) twice, and they fed her through the pacifier right there on the bed, a hearty, blended vegetable soup followed by a delicious milkshake and some water. She was only released twice, once to reply to another text (no change), and then again to reply to yet another text (still no change, but they were giving her a good prognosis) and to make a call to her own mother. Heather was fine with Zoe sleeping over yet again; she was just worried that Zoe was in a bad state, as her voice was still audibly upset even after so many hours, but Zoe reassured her that she would be fine and thanked her, genuinely thanked her, for caring. Once the conversation was over, she'd put the plugged-in headphones back on her own head, strapped the pacifier right back in her own mouth, and held out her hands for the mittens again. She would have to take a shower eventually, at least - no, a bath, one of those long baths. But that was tomorrow, that was some other time, that wasn't right then, she was unable to walk and in her enormous dress and hugging a plushie with her mittens right then. Just a sweet, helpless baby, looked after by all her friends, until she had a really good reason to be a big girl again.

Richard had heard once that people often had sex after scary situations, but he'd never before experienced that himself. He did then, as Susie found a time when Caroline was looking after Zoe to order him straight into her room, and he found that he was entirely ready to go and so was she, and they made desperate, passionate love, kissing each other everywhere and holding each other close for half an hour, each of them so very glad that the other was okay, and Susie fell asleep in Richard's arms and he didn't want to wake her up. Caroline didn't, either. Instead, she told her dad what was going on and that she really wanted to stay with the group because they were all seriously worked up over this. The man did not object.

Leslie woke up half-delerious very late at night, looking around a softly lit hospital room with bleary eyes. Her head was on a pillow and something with tubes had been strapped to her face. Wires led from her chest to a heart monitor, which was showing a steady pulse. An IV tube snaked into her left arm. And she could not move.

She briefly wondered if she had been medically paralyzed with some sort of drug, but of course they wouldn't have dared. The IV in her wrist was probably just saline and maybe light painkillers, she figured, and thing going over her mouth was simply giving her added oxygen. (It wasn't a real ventilator; that would have likely ruptured something.) She wasn't restrained. She wasn't drugged. She simply couldn't move. She managed to look to the right. Her phone was right there, within easy reach - if she could move her arm. She tried, very hard, and suddenly a stab of screeching agony erupted from her right pectoral and she felt like she was having a terrible cramp or even a seizure. She'd barely moved her arm at all.

Leslie cried, taking short breaths against the artificial airflow, her eyes closed because the simple act of keeping them open was too much. Mindy had specifically warned about this exact thing, done everything she could to prevent it, given Leslie advice to prevent it, and it had happened anyway. Just like last week, everyone was trying to help her; no one was trying to hurt her. And yet there she was, severely hurt anyway. What if this was permanent? What if oxygen masks and near-total paralysis were going to be with her for the rest of her short life?

A vision came to her: She would say goodbye to Zoe and then ask Richard to kill her, and he'd gently clasp her jaw shut while his fingers pinched her nose closed, and her suffering would be no more.

Not sure whether she was dreaming or not, she fell back asleep.


	23. Good News, and...

Zoe woke up in a haze. She wasn't confused, she knew what she had on, and her bowels were full. She had to get that stuff off, she was not going to poop that cloth diaper. Where to start? She was probably by herself, it had been all night, and yelling through the pacifier for help would be awful even if they could hear her. She figured she could untie the ribbons on the mittens, but she couldn't bite them with the pacifier in, she had to see what she was doing, so she fumbled at the stuff attached to her head -

And then a pair of hands was helping her, pulling it off - the morning sun shone through the window - and unbuckling the pacifier, and Caroline, in her pajamas, looked down at her. "You want out?" she asked.

"Yeah, thanks, I gotta poop," Zoe said, sitting up and holding out her mittens for Caroline to take off. Her phone was plugged in, right where she'd left it, and - wait, what? "Missed call, voicemail?" Zoe asked, reaching over as soon as her hands were free, displeased that her friends must have noticed but didn't let her out as they had for Willa's texts.

"Ricky said it was bullshit," Caroline answered as she moved to take off Zoe's booties. Oof, that foot-stink. Into the wash with those.

Frustrated, Zoe called her voicemail anyway - if her brother said it was bullshit, it was almost certainly bullshit, but she had to check - and listened to the message.

"-ternal Revenue Service. An action may be brought against you, and you may be subject to arrest. Call-"

"Fucking SCAMMERS!" she cried out in frustration, clenching her phone angrily and deleting the message quickly. Of course her brother had been right. She'd first heard that particular scam when she was a very confused eleven-year-old. She looked around for her clothes; they were right there, folded up and freshly washed, and she got ready to go poop and start her day, not wanting to walk around the house naked or in the prom dress, which had felt like extra blankets around her legs. At least the thing had some use other than just making her brother look pretty.

"I got a text from my dad, I've got to go back in today," Caroline told her as she took off the dress and dry diaper. "You'll be all right?"

"I won't be all right until she is," Zoe snapped back.

"I'm sure if you asked them to keep taking care of you," Caroline started.

"No thanks," Zoe interrupted sharply. Being completely helpless and looked after by her friends had been pleasant in its own way and probably what she'd needed at the time, but all it really did was leave her alone with her thoughts, and she didn't want that anymore. "Sorry, Caroline, I don't mean to take this out on you..."

"It's fine, you're not in a good spot, none of us are. I just had some real bad dreams, and those two went and had trauma-sex last night."

"Is that even a word?"

"Is now," Caroline replied, and Zoe, shaking her head and chuckling in spite of herself, shoved her phone into her pocket and headed to the bathroom.

A knock on the door interrupted Zoe's bathing. "Mind if we join you?" Susie asked from the other side.

"Come on in," Zoe replied. It wasn't like they hadn't bathed together before, and it was Susie's house, after all. They walked in, already naked and holding hands, and Zoe realized how much her values had shifted when she saw the handholding as the interesting part. "He's mine today," Zoe told Susie straight-out as they stepped into the tub.

"Emotional support?" Susie asked in understanding.

"Starcraft," Zoe replied. "We're going to have breakfast - here, not there, you've got the better food - and then I'm going to take Ricky home and play Starcraft with him all day so I'm not thinking about anything else." She was getting literally sick with worry, and she looked over at the two of them, cuddled together, with envy. They were healthy. They didn't have to worry about each other's bodies falling apart for no reason other than stupid, weird genetic bullshit. But that wasn't fair to them, they'd done everything they could to help Leslie, especially Richard, and neither one of them objected in the slightest to her taking her brother's time all day. She started to judge herself, and worry about them judging her, and she knew that was just stupid and she tried to shrug it off.

Zoe abruptly came to the determination that, if Leslie really became truly healthy at the end of this, she was going to team up with her and the other girls, convince Susie to buy one of those ridiculous dresses from Spectral, set aside a very large chunk of time, and sissify the absolute hell out of her brother. It was the most fitting method she could think of to reward him.

But, at that moment, all she wanted was for her phone to make noise, any noise, Discord or texts or calls, and it remained stubbornly silent even thought she knew the volume was turned up.

The four of them ate breakfast together, and Zoe hurt at the fact that it wasn't the five of them, wondering what things were like at their previous meals. Had the others evne had dinner yesterday... oh, right, of course they had, Zoe had been fed hers through the pacifier, she'd even enjoyed it. But that morning was silent, almost funereal and somber, and Zoe had to say something, anything, to make it not feel like a wake. Leslie was okay, damn it, she was in the hospital, she wasn't dead! "Caroline, can you drive us home this morning? I don't want to walk." She was absolutely not feeling up to anything resembling physical activity, and she didn't want to see, let alone meet, anyone else on the paths.

"No problem," Caroline immediately replied, and Zoe thanked her reflexively, her mind entirely on where Leslie was and what she was doing.

Leslie was in the shade of a tree under the bright sun, enjoying a pleasant picnic with her friends, all of whom, even Zoe and Caroline, were wearing frilly dresses as beautiful as hers. They drank tea with their pinkies extended under their frilly white gloves, and they took turns skipping rope and playing hopscotch, and Leslie never missed a single jump. The five of them did cheer rehearsals in their pretty dresses and long, curly hair full of sparkly bows, dancing and holding hands around the tree and giggling the whole time, and then they rode My Little Ponies sidesaddle around the grass. It was all so silly, and she knew she was dreaming the whole time, but she wanted to keep it going as long as she could. She didn't want to open her eyes and see the hospital lights and hospital walls surrounding her, all the equipment hooked up to her broken body. In her condition, what else was there to do but daydream?

Her reverie was eventually interrupted by Mindy, the first person she saw that day, and her face was a pleasant sight - except for the fact that she'd been upset. This alarmed Leslie quite a bit. "Leslie, you're going to be okay, but before we even start this meeting today, I just want to tell you that I should have realized that you weren't in good shape this morning and I'm sorry." This worried her. She was going to be okay how? Compared to what? Leslie also felt that she should have been apologizing, that Mindy had warned her about this exact thing and she hadn't recognized it.

"What...?" she managed to croak out, but she felt like it was drowned out under the oxygen flow.

"It's complicated, and I'll let Dr. Bonesnapp talk about it." Leslie didn't have to wait; the man was shortly in the door with both of her parents, right along with Dr. Sinchurch, who... couldn't keep the smile off his face? What...?

"Leslie, are you aware right now? Can you hear me?" Dr. Bonesnapp asked, and the girl did the best she could to nod her head. "Excellent. The reason you're in here today is because your cells had a little bit of a disagreement with each other. As it turns out, judging from the biopsies we took, Dr. Sinchurch's therapy was able to affect anywhere from four-fifths to seven-eighths of your muscle cells, which I'm given to understand is frankly miraculous for this kind of therapy. Their cellular walls were restored, and they were able to exert more force. Unfortunately, the unaffected cells really aren't able to withstand that force."

Leslie weakly laughed behind her oxygen mask. It was a solution her girlfriend's brother would love, she was sure, at least his dark side. Most of the cells had been turned good, and then the good ones had torn the bad ones to pieces. That explained why she'd felt so totally weird, why she'd had no idea what was happening. She'd become stronger and weaker at the same time.

"The current problem is that, as you know, having too many dead muscle cells floating around in your system is really not good for you. If your friends had delayed in getting you here, your condition would be much worse than it is, especially your kidneys," he continued seriously. "Right now, we're just going to keep flushing your system and doing what we can to promote muscle growth. For now, just wait."

"Would another dose of gene therapy help?" Willa asked.

"No," Dr. Sinchurch immediately replied. "Our therapy is a multivector injection with enough of a dose to affect every cell in her body many times over. Multiple injections have shown a negligible effect in animal models. I can say with some certainty that pretty much every cell that's going to be affected has been affected."

"And I would advise against her immune system being suppressed under these conditions anyway," Dr. Bonesnapp added. "Right now, we're in uncharted territory and a bit of a tricky situation. Leslie, in the next coming weeks at least, if you exercise too much, so many more Duchenne cells will die at once that you'll be back in rhabdo again, and your kidneys really can't afford that. Don't exercise enough, and those stem cells are going to go to waste and you might have additional atrophy on top of that. We need to find a balance, and that balance will change," he said with a glance at Mindy. He leaned down next to Leslie, cupping one of her hands in his own, and she found to some relief that she could curl her fingers. "You're getting better. You're getting much better. Dr. Sinchurch and I believe that it is very possible that you will be walking unassisted by the end of the summer. Just pace yourself."

This was the advice she had gotten from Mindy, and she had expected more of it. But the other thing he told her, 'walking unassisted by the end of the summer' - she almost couldn't even parse that at first, especially not in her current state. No more braces, no more walkers, no more wheelchairs. Just walking, like she used to, walking on trails and to movies and on sandy islands, like a normal person - well, as normal as everyone else in the Squad. She started quietly hyperventilating a little, her eyes moist. "When can I go home?" she carefully asked, trying to make herself heard.

"Not for a few days at least, we're not letting you get discharged earlier than you should be this time," he said, and the way he said it made Leslie (correctly) suspect that he'd been arguing with the hospital administration. "Right now, I just want to go over some things with you and your parents." She would be taking more pills, as she'd expected, and she was already being given quite a few things through the IV tube: anti-inflammatories, carefully dosed steroids, and a cocktail of bodybuilding supplements; the only thing that was lacking was the extra protein (the liquefied musclemen, she thought to herself), as there was too much protein in her bloodstream as it was. She got strict orders not to move in certain ways, once she was able to do that. The next time she would meet Mindy would be with a greatly revised therapeutic regimen, and before then, she really wasn't allowed to move much at all. She would have to be paying a lot of attention to certain pain signals, after having experienced what that felt like, and someone would still have to be closely examining the color of her urine. But 'walking unassisted', those magic words, kept her attentive. She could trust Mindy and her doctors. If she just did what they told her, she would walk unassisted.

But, at that moment, just her arms felt like they weighed a hundred pounds. She tried to lift one of them, but her body told her that such a thing was a dreadful idea and that she ought to stop.

Dr. Bonesnapp and the other professionals bid their goodbyes and well-wishes and left Leslie alone with her parents. Robert took one look around, making sure that no one was looking, and then suddenly hugged his daughter. He really wasn't supposed to do that just then, there was a pandemic going on after all, but he couldn't help himself. His daughter, the girl he'd sworn to take care of ever since he and his wife rescued her from those awful birth parents, had come damn near to dying, and he hadn't even been there... and then Willa was on the other side of the bed, leaning in and hugging her as well. "Is there anything we can do for you right now?" Willa asked.

That question had an easy answer. "Tell Zoe," Leslie said, as loud as she could. Her memories of yesterday were smeared, but she distinctly remembered how freaked out Zoe had been. She and the rest of the Squad would want to know all of this, right away.

"Text Zoe? Of course, I'll do that right away," her mother said, and it was close enough that Leslie didn't correct her. "You're not able to?" Leslie looked to her phone and tried to lift her arm again, but it still just didn't work. Her mother, in complete understanding, took the phone off the table, laid it on her chest, and helpfully lifted Leslie's hands over it. "When you can, sweetheart."

"Thanks, Mom," Leslie said, and smiled behind her oxygen mask. Her parents kissed her through their own flu masks and left her alone. She tried to move around her phone in her hands, but her forearms didn't really want to and it was a lost cause. She closed her eyes and went back to semi-wakefulness, dreaming of princesses (one of them a boy) and unicorns and castles in the clouds while her overtaxed kidneys urinated dead, rejected muscle remains into her diaper. 

Richard's heels made cute little clicking noises on the path to his house, and he graciously opened the door for his morose sister. "All right, little sis, you and I are going to play until-" she started saying before her phone abruptly went off. It was in her hand in a second, and she was reading the text from Willa with wide eyes. "Oh my God. Oh my God!" she said, breathing rapidly, reading what Willa was telling her. "The treatment, it made most cells good but killed too many bad ones, but it actually worked, she's getting better..." Richard leaned over her shoulder to see what she was talking about and understood very quickly. Zoe summarized it in their chat almost at once, with immediate, happy replies from Susie. "I still want to do this, though," she told her brother. She was still emotionally wound up.

Putting herself into the role of Sarah Kerrigan (although she usually played Terrans) was relieving. It was just the enjoyment of being in charge, especially when 'in charge' also included somebody who was, almost universally, way too good for the opponents they were facing. She definitely understood the appeal of being a domme, especially when the sub was someone like him. She wasn't Susie, but if she pushed his buttons in a nice way, she could snap her fingers and he'd do basically anything she wanted, too.

That was how they spent their day: Crush noobs, talk for a bit, brush his long, pretty hair before putting it back in pigtails, eat lunch, go back to crushing noobs again. Zoe had just finished massing up for a big push when her plugged-in phone made the characteristic bloop sound and she spared a movement to turn the screen on. "That's Leslie!" she shouted, forgetting for half a second that she was in the middle of a difficult game. Within a fraction of a second, she sent her entire army across the map at one of the enemies in an un-micromanaged all-out assault, taking another half-second to queue up unit production. "Ricky, KILL THEM!" she commanded her brother in the other room. He wasn't quite going easy on the opposition, but she knew that he had been holding back somewhat, giving her a chance to make a difference.

[1:51 PM] Leslie: typing hard  
[1:52 PM] Leslie: all muscles hurt  
[1:52 PM] Zoe: But they'll totally heal!  
[1:52 PM] Leslie: yes

Waiting for 'Leslie is typing...' was the hardest thing in the world for Zoe, and she took a moment to send in more army and look at the blistering battle in the middle of the map. Her forces - and Richard's - had met both opponents dead center, and while she wasn't microing well, he certainly was, and between his rapidly blinking Stalkers and storming Templars, he was punching well above the weight of his very large army.

[1:53 PM] Leslie: you got mom's message  
[1:53 PM] Zoe: Yes, she told us everything. I hope it happens so much!  
[1:53 PM] Zoe: I've been so worried about you. I'm so sorry I didn't realize what was going on earlier!!

'Leslie is typing...' again, and most of her army was moving towards the opponent's corner where she'd sent it. The other opponent was trying to save his friend, but they gave up as it was hopeless, and Zoe saw the Victory screen while that frustrating, maddening 'Leslie is typing...' stayed right where it was.

[1:55 PM] Leslie: It was my fault, not your fault. My body.

Zoe didn't know how to reply, but fortunately, her friends did.

[1:56 PM] Caroline: let's not do the blame ourselves thing, ok? none of us knew wtf was happening until zoe saw it.  
[1:56 PM] Susie: What Caroline said.  
[1:56 PM] Richard: All that matters is that you got there in time.  
[1:58 PM] Leslie: Only problem is my kidneys.  
[2:02 PM] Leslie: Last hour they put a tube down my throat and I have an IV too. Cleaning me out. Peeing constantly. :cry:  
[2:02 PM] Susie: Is it the nose kind?  
[2:04 PM] Leslie: NO thank god! They actually asked which I wanted  
[2:06 PM] Leslie: They'll take it out in another hour or so..  
[2:08 PM] Leslie: So hard to type and battery running out but I need to say this  
[2:08 PM] Zoe: Listening.  
[2:11 PM] Leslie: I daydream of us as little princesses doing silly little princess stuff. Unicorns, rainbows, jump rope, dancing, pattycake, Even you Caroline! I know how silly that is but there's nothing else to do. I get out "in a few days".  
[2:12 PM] Zoe: Make your daydreams as sweet as you want. I love you so much Leslie. :heart:  
[2:12 PM] Leslie: :hearts:  
[2:12 PM] Caroline: that is the sweetest thing and i don't mind either  
[2:12 PM] Susie: I already know who's not excluded from these daydreams.  
[2:14 PM] Leslie: Of course he isn't, it was harder to imagine Zoe and Caroline :laughing:  
[2:14 PM] Richard: :laughing:  
[2:15 PM] Susie: I propose we make them come true as soon as we can.  
[2:15 PM] Caroline: granted  
[2:15 PM] Zoe: Agreed.  
[2:15 PM] Richard: Yes, Your Highness.  
[2:18 PM] Leslie: You are all the best. I have to stop now. Talk to you tomorrow. I love you Zoe. :hearts::hearts::hearts:

Zoe decided it was a good time to stop their galactic reign of terror and go back to more sedate activities, and she found herself hugging her brother because she needed someone to hug.

They spent the next three days as they had the first time Leslie was in the hospital. Even though she wasn't in isolation this time, and her parents visited daily, she still didn't want her friends seeing her like that, even more crippled and helpless than usual. Heather took her children outside for Saturday again; one day a week was actually better than the none she'd really had with them before all this started. She didn't understand why the therapy had only affected most, not all of the cells, and her children didn't get it either, but apparently it was a regular problem for therapies of that kind.

Sunday, the able-bodied members of the Squad went out swimming together, making good use of their Y memberships. Caroline was surprisingly sedate that day, and she explained that she'd felt the PMDD coming on, so she'd drank a lot of calming tea and done meditation exercises. Richard wasn't sure whether that was placebo or not, but it seemed to work, and her attitude was much better than it had been last month. Leslie, too, was in good spirits. She had her phone and its charger within reach, she could finally feed herself and swallow properly again, and she said she could feel some strength returning, sometimes in places where she wasn't even sure she'd had strength before the treatment. That might have been placebo, too, but that was what all the testing equipment was for.

Monday was the same way, Caroline with a half-day of work. It was almost normal, except for the fact that Zoe once found cause to say, out loud, that she refused to accept their group being without Leslie as 'normal' in the slightest, and no one argued with that. Richard was starting to notice a gradual change in Susie's attitude towards him, a growing sense of satisfaction with his behavior, what he did and the way he did it, almost a sort of smugness. It certainly wasn't mean-spirited, and she wasn't telling him to do anything out of the ordinary - well, out of the ordinary for them, anyway. But he couldn't shake the feeling that something was up, and he had a hard time getting to sleep that night. (It was his own bed; Heather had insisted on having her children eat dinner at home before the food went bad.)

Something just wasn't right; something else was going on, he was certain of it, something that had nothing to do with Leslie. He thought about schedules, and regular happenings, and timing. He thought of things that did happen, and things that didn't, what they weren't doing and what they were. He thought of attitudes and reactions, of plans, of what-ifs and if-thens.

And then - he realized!


	24. A Joyous Occasion

Zoe's brother was being weird.

His pigtails were swinging slightly, framing his lightly made-up face. The glitter on his lavender, heart-adorned top and ruffled skirt was glistening in the morning sun, only hidden by his pretty pink backpack, and the bells on his socks were lightly jingling while the lights were flashing on his two-inch heeled sneakers as he skipped along like an adorable little first-grade sweetheart out with her big sister.

None of that, of course, was the weird part. That had become his normal resting state, the person he liked to be when he didn't have to be anyone else. The weird part was that he'd obviously had something on his mind, and when asked about it, simply said that he wouldn't explain anything until they were in the same room as Susie. This worried her a bit, but he certainly didn't seem upset about whatever it was, given that he'd happily picked out his own outfit to skip along with after they'd had breakfast and their mother had gone off to work. (Heather was attempting to get better at cooking and buying better food, and her children had been an enormous help.)

Richard was actually kicking himself a bit for not having figured it out earlier. He had been so preoccupied with the enjoyable parts of what they were doing, along with the security in knowing what she would never do to him, that he had completely neglected to seriously consider what the two of them had actually been doing the whole time. Of course she had never cuckolded him, or tricked him into some humiliating situation, or did any kind of bait-and-switch, or commanded him to do something truly demeaning. No, she saw him as a treasure she wanted to keep, presumably for the rest of her life, and how does a girl best guarantee her future with a boy with such a strong sense of responsibility?

She hadn't betrayed him; in a way, she'd done the exact opposite of that.

"Well, aren't you looking cute today?" Susie said, smiling. "Did you remember to skip like I told you?"

"Mmm-hmm!" Richard said, his girlishly painted lips in a wide smile as he and his big sister walked into Susie's house.

"I'm very proud of you," Susie began, but he interrupted her.

"Hi, very proud of you, I'm Dad!" Richard replied immediately, and she blinked in surprise.

Zoe rolled her eyes. "Dad jokes, Ricky? Really?"

Richard directed his question towards Susie with a little bit of annoyance in his voice: "Shouldn't I be telling them?"

Susie blinked again, her mouth partway open, and her silence said everything. She hadn't anticipating him figuring it out before she was ready to tell him. He was just too. Damn. Smart.

Zoe's eyes widened, looking between the two of them, wondering if this was some elaborate prank at her expense. "Woah, woah, woah. Susie, you're actually pregnant? You got yourself- oh my God." Why hadn't she seen it earlier? They hadn't been using protection, they hadn't even talked about using protection. Susie hadn't been on any kind of birth control. Of course it was intentional, there was no way in hell a girl as smart and rich as she was would get herself pregnant by mistake, and Richard knew that as well.

"Zoe, just back off for now, okay?" Richard asked quietly, and she heard a little bit of that thing in his voice. She mutely shook her head, her brain going a million miles an hour. If it had been her who had gotten pregnant, her life would basically be over, but the obvious objections - how are a pair of teenagers possibly going to take care of a child? - faded into mental chaos, because Susie had basically limitless financial resources and her brother could do damn near anything just in general. "Why didn't you just tell me, Your Highness?" he asked her. Cripes, he was still calling her that! And he'd happily skipped all the way there like a little schoolgirl, even while he'd known the whole time!

"I was going to, at the right time," Susie nervously replied. This was the first time either of the siblings had seen her shaken in this way, her poise broken and her aristocratic attitude staggered. "I was going to tell you and my dad after I missed two periods, and then he was going to give you a choice, because he posted that on a forum somewhere," It had been Reddit, and the post had been heavily downvoted. "and I know which one you'll pick." She silently cursed at herself. It sounded so damn manipulative when she said it out loud. She didn't tell him the other part, that she had planned to use the extra month to further cement their relationship, hopefully enough that this would not be that big of a surprise. "That's still when I want to tell him, that's when I'll know for sure and it's not just some random missed period or super early miscarriage or something." This just wasn't how she saw this going, how she thought the conversation would happen. She had planned it all out, and her plan had collapsed, and she stared at the carpet. "This is going to sound so stupid, but please don't overthink this and please don't tell anyone else. My dad is predictable, he wants to be predictable, so just trust me that it'll all work out." She almost sounded like she was trying to convince herself, which was really, really not how this was supposed to go.

Zoe found her objection. "You know you two aren't playing some sex game now? This is the rest of your life. Both of you. There's no safeword for taking care of a kid!"

"We know," Richard said. His voice was unusually calm and detached, Zoe noted, and she wondered how the hell her little brother could be unemotional in the face of a dilemma this large, especially at his age. But for him, there was no dilemma because there were no options at all, and there hadn't been for over a month, not for things like this. His thought process was very simple, almost game-like. There were only the choices that kept him and Susie together. Everything else was equivalent to suicide. "Zoe, didn't you say that you owe me for saving Leslie from her birth parents?"

"What does that have to do with this?"

"I'm calling it in," Richard said, as he'd planned to do since he woke up that morning. "You help us out with this. Her life's worth our child's." Susie abruptly looked up. She had not expected him to say something like that, either, not after he'd figured it out early. He was miffed at her for hiding it from him, of course he was, but had switched to 'our child' in seconds.

Zoe stared at him for a moment, never imagining that he could or would ever actually have reason to call in such a favor, and she immediately lifted her hands in surrender. "All right," she replied. "I'll do whatever I can, but Ricky, this isn't one day of sitting in a room, this isn't one day of anything. This is years and years!"

"I know," Richard replied. "Just help keep Mom from freaking out and then help us with your niece or nephew, I'm not saying spend your whole life all the time."

"Niece or nephew, Jesus, you are serious." Her next objection was going to be about school, but that was stupid too, of course there were all kinds of alternatives for people with infinite money, especially during a pandemic where everyone was doing everything online anyway, or would things even be like that in nine months or so? Jesus, this was a thing that was happening, a thing happening to him and to her. She was starting to become emotionally overwhelmed, she didn't feel like she had the maturity for this - that any of them did - and she sat down heavily on Susie's couch. Did her little brother just not get what this would actually be like? Fuck, maybe he did, that was why he'd asked for her help.

The truth was that he didn't know at all. He had simply called in the favor because he'd decided that he needed to make sure that his sister would help with something this important rather than get in the way. Whether Susie's plan was a good idea or a bad one was a secondary concern; it was her plan for their mutual future, and so he had to maximize the chances of it working because that was what he did. A big part of his brain was going full steam with what-ifs and worries and trepidation, but he quietly shoved it into a corner. He took off his pink backpack and sat down next to his sister, still in his pretty, sparkly clothes.

Suddenly and fiercely, Susie sat next to him and hugged him, pressing her face into his side, refusing to cry through sheer force of will, having been worried that this would be his nope-out point and very, very happy that it wasn't. He reflexively put his arm around her, and she decided then and there that this was his real purpose, the thing he was for beyond all others. If she couldn't use her dear, sweet, lovable, and so nicely and willingly servile boyfriend for emotional support, what good was he?

"I wonder what it's going to look like?" Zoe asked the two of them. "Or their, God, imagine if it's twins!"

Susie abruptly laughed. "Could be anything," she said, looking up from her boyfriend's dress where she was hugging it. "Seriously, if you saw my family tree, you can see the resemblances, but there's so much mixture and recessive stuff on both sides. My dad's mom had green eyes."

"Well, now you've got Ricky's in there," Zoe replied. "God, Susie, I mean if is this what works with your dad, I get it, but there's no going back ever. Even right now there's not, but do you really want to be a mom?"

"Yes," Susie replied, and decided not to add to that.

"All right," Zoe said again, her mother's words echoing in her head: 'You are not normal teenagers.' No, they definitely were not. "I won't tell anyone until you're ready to." She thought some more, wondering if they could possibly keep the relationship they had with a child in the house, and then she recalled something else. "Oh. Now I know why you'd asked him that question that one time. Hey, Ricky, do you remember when she asked you about how children should be exposed to different lifestyles?"

The question jogged Richard's memory, and he tried to recall details. Right, they'd been on the path, and of course that's why she asked him that, it wasn't really some theoretical question for fun, she was basically asking him how he'd feel about doing their kinky stuff in a household with their own children in it! He felt like Susie had tricked him, and that somehow irked him even more. "Yeah, I remember," he told his sister. "You should have just told me," he said to Susie in annoyance, and she kept her face pressed into his sparkly shirt in silent apology - hiding this from her devoted boyfriend was stupid and pointless, why did she ever think she had to? - and his reply to that was to just hold her more tightly. Staying angry with her was beyond his capabilities, an ability he'd traded away for other, more useful perks.

Zoe just sat there with them. She was starting to get used to emotional shock. It didn't even matter if he'd called in that favor, her existence, hers and Richard's, had been upended totally. She was going to be an aunt at the age of fourteen, and Richard... should have his fourteenth birthday before the baby was due, she reckoned. A baby. Not a doll or a pet but a genuine, squalling, milk-drinking human baby, a baby who would... "Your kid is going to be so happy," Zoe said. Wait, wasn't there a specific, negative word for this? Susie had used it once, people had thought she was... oh right, 'spoiled'. Zoe wouldn't say that word herself, especially around Susie. "That kid is going to get everything, and I already know what its closet going to look like, doesn't matter if it's a boy or girl."

Susie laughed, looking up from where she was hugging her sweet girlyboy. "We are not going to make the nursery too pink," she said with a smile. "And when our baby's old enough, we'll see what he or she actually likes."

"The childhood we never had," Zoe said enviously. Suddenly, she started laughing as well. What had she even been worried about? Hell, what had Richard been worried about, calling in that favor? They had far more resources than they'd need, certainly more than she and her brother had ever had. There was basically no chance that the kid would ever even see the inside of a daycare or a public school. The only wildcards would be their families, but Susie's dad really had to be predictable or she wouldn't be doing this, and Zoe was quite certain that their own mother could and would be prevented from freaking out.

Richard joined in the laughter. A pregnancy was a joyous occasion, after all, something to be celebrated, and unless something detestable happened, his princess would be holding their own little bundle of joy early next year. He kissed her on top of her head, his lipstick leaving the very faintest impression on her hair.

Susie gently extricated herself from the hug, smiling at him. "There is one thing we're going to need before we take care of the baby, you know," she said with a sly grin, and Richard realized that she was looking over his shoulder at Zoe.

"Practice?" Zoe asked, returning the smirk. The two girls were decisively on the same wavelength.

"You guessed it, and look! We have our volunteer," Susie replied, grinning widely, getting up and going upstairs while Richard's big sister watched over him. A wide smile graced his face as she placed his padded mittens over his hands and strapped his pacifier into his mouth, replacing the modesty panties under his glittery skirt with his thick diaper and cover and replacing his jingly socks and heeled sneakers with his no-walking booties. She'd considered putting him in his reins and tying him to something, but instead she decided to cuddle him as she usually did, the babified boy on the couch between the girls, his legs over Zoe's and his head on Susie's lap, inches from the real baby growing inside her. He suckled on his pacifier in complete contentment, total bliss drowning everything else out as his big sister and his princess looked after him.

"Can we at least tell the Squad?" Zoe asked while an episode was ending. "I know, it's not my secret to share, but I don't want to have to keep this from Leslie and Caroline."

"Yeah, but Leslie could never tell her parents. I don't want them getting involved." Her face changed, as an idea came to mind. "If you did tell her, you'd be the one giving her a secret not to tell."

"You know, that's true. All right, no more complaining. Just more tickling." She playfully, gently poked the bottoms of Richard's booties, making the blunted spikes prod him gently, but that wasn't doing quite what she wanted, so she untied them and began to tickle his feet. She'd never done anything like that when they were children; she'd actually thought about it when she was six, but he was so protective, so reactive, even at five years old that she'd never seriously considered going through with it. But now, he giggled helplessly as she tickled him, pretending to jerk and kick but actually moving his feet into a better position for more tickling. She was his big sister, after all. If she wanted to tickle him, it was his job as her good little sissy brother to help her do it. Susie got into the act as well, moving her fingers under his sparkly shirt to tickle him under his armpits, and the boy was in exaggerated convulsions before they stopped and put his booties on again.

Tickled, diapered, sissified, coddled, and loved, Richard was in heaven as his princess' and big sister's pet, happily drinking his meals through his pacifier and hugging his plushie, completely helpless before them and never wanting to be anything else. Zoe talked about her coloring books, and while Majid hadn't kept things like that around, Susie found some online coloring sites, took Richard's mittens off, and let him sit on the floor with her laptop perched on his thick diaper as he sat with his legs babyishly splayed, happily coloring in pictures of children's cartoon characters as the big girls talked about big girl things until Susie wanted her laptop back and his mittens went back on. The only other thing they let him out of that day was his used diaper, and then everything later when he and Susie enjoyed their usual bath together.

It wasn't until the next morning that he was in adult-ish clothes again, but of course that was his Team Leslie uniform, and the girl was in much better spirits - and much better health! - than the last time they'd seen her, a fact that Zoe was openly grateful for. Leslie was doing the same things in the same miniature pool as she had before, and she'd still be hospitalized for the next couple of days, but there was a certain vitality to her movements, an exuberance that hadn't been there before. Her numbers were going in the right direction, and Susie smiled deeply watching her, very glad that her friend was doing so well. There was another secret Susie had, one that she had no plans of telling anyone for years (not even Richard, there was no benefit to telling him and he really didn't need to know), one that she had actually been talking to her father about.

Dr. Sinchurch could barely believe what he was hearing from his company's co-founder. Getting angel investors for early-stage biotech was very, very difficult, and for good reason: it was a high-risk venture, despite the potential enormous upside. Leslie's treatment was looking to be very promising, yes, but that was proprietary information and he certainly hadn't gotten to the point where he could even consider publishing a paper on it! He tried to think of reasons why the hell some Iranian mogul had randomly decided to invest two million dollars into his company, but he drew a blank. Maybe the man's son had Duchenne? At any rate, the scientist certainly wasn't going to look that gift horse in the mouth too closely. Even if this was the result of some insider shenanigans - and he couldn't even guess what they could be - his company was far from being publicly traded and so there were no worries regarding legality. He decided to just take the money and feel glad that this Majid, whoever he was, had guaranteed in writing that he wouldn't interfere with the company's operations. Then again, if this all panned out, the man would eventually receive a return of ten, twenty, possibly even a hundred times his initial investment. The researcher idly wondered what a guy like that would do with all that money and who it would go to in the end.


End file.
